Quiet, the toaster. Quiet, the scalloped flesh,
the bathroom sinks. Saints wander the boy's head
like men lost in hallways, like children watching
mothers mop violent mornings into nightgowns.
The wisdom of Georgia is spread wide across
duplex floors—boys white as scarecrows
long-bleached and convinced they are men,
boys willing to piece together the broken
weathervanes of foreclosing farms, maiden
gardens. This boy is left with his mother white
as fox underbelly, a consolation
prize of blessed skin, of rivers and begonias.