Stay
when I
squeeze your hand I’m squeezing her
hand—his mother
in the room—his
mother’s me—
He’s dying—
He’s dying—
He’s asking
Why
I
Love
Him—
when I
squeeze your hand I’m squeezing her
hand—the whiskey on
the table, the
rabbits in the
yard
at night—
“even on mornings when I don’t see
you I’ll see you”—you will go, I will
follow, I will stop, you are with me,
you are with me—and there he was,
throwing his face at his grave—
property is death: they had a body crammed in
a mailbox and it was just a blue suit with bones
sticking out:
your
stain of
faded
storm
light in
my mouth:
the face in the house—your lips slip the
night—your face slips your eyes—your eyes
slip your yes—love like flying—
my father
rain
becoming
rain
rain
becoming
rain
He’s dying—
He’s dying—
He’s asking
Why
I
Love
Him—
Joseph Lease’s critically acclaimed books of poetry include Testify (Coffee House Press, 2011) and Broken World (Coffee House Press, 2007). Lease’s poems “‘Broken World’ (For James Assatly)” and “Send My Roots Rain” were anthologized in Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (Norton). “‘Broken World’ (For James Assatly)” was also anthologized in The Best American Poetry (Scribner). The Academy of American Poets anthologized Lease’s poem “True Faith” on poets.org, and e-mailed the poem to 70,000 subscribers. Lease’s poem “Free Again (Why don’t people)” was published in The New York Times. Lease has received The Academy of American Poets Prize and grants and awards in poetry and poetics from Columbia University, Harvard University, Brown University, and California College of the Arts. He is a Professor of Writing and Literature at California College of the Arts and a member of the Advisory Board of the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.