toxic psalm

(on being diagnosed w/Parkinson’s disease)

this poison inside me blessed

to go off before “that’s all folks”

my body unloads its chemistry peels

off its neuro-attention before

my brain can lock-and-load

this is my body unplugged

unraveled synaptic vines

spilling sprawled un-

sortably un-

wired

i’m beginning to sink

i’m coming apart

before the poison inside me

my mother wore red

we undanced heavily sedated

my father ate nuclear bananas

inside airborne b-52’s

over the great divide

i just wanted less more

i wanted

a body to call

my own

i wanted

tissue zoned

toxic-free

this charged chemistry

is failing

beginning to solo—

here’s how a body makes up its own mind

here’s how a body decides for itself

here’s how a body takes over its own story

after birth

my mother wore blue

she did not know

the poison was planted

deep in my brain

my father came down

with post-traumatic orange 

our sin

my cellular vertigo

no one called crime-stoppers

no one worried i was

a genetic suicide-bomb

i can’t say

my childhood was yellow

but all or mostly green

my mother wore black

off the rack

where it hung like

body-bags

my father ate grilled

factory flesh

his mess dress loaded with

medallions ribbons insignia

from storing napalm

“successfully”

this body

has a hole

punctured in

its ozone

this body

is experiencing

ice-cap

meltdown

this body

has toasted

magnetic

codes

this body

is a flashlight

whose battery

is dying

in the darkest

post-glacial

night

my body can’t think

my body i wanted

to pray before

the poison sealed

my body

from me—