Trio No. 9 (For My Father)

1.
Don’t believe everything you hear.

Don’t believe everything you see.

Don’t believe everything you’re told.

Don’t believe everything you believe.


2.
That trip I pretended I liked baseball.
I was as transparent as Donny Ramirez’s curve ball.

That trip I pretended to be asleep, but watched all of Objective Burma through slit eyelids.
I was as transparent as its nationalist propaganda.

That trip I pretended I would stop pretending.
I am transparent.


3.
A list of objects and compound objects:

A spark plug, which just won’t fit.

A yellow tent with just enough room for two.

The worn pull-cord of a rusty, red lawnmower.

A sawhorse, covered in blood, which later appeared in my dream.

Brown carpet, well worn by playful wrestling matches.

A Mickey Mouse-shaped ice cream pop, melting in the car, to my embarrassment.

A brown pocket-knife, my first.

The sandpapery teeth of a smallmouth bass, my first.

The set of double bunk-beds shared between the four of us.

A mysterious bamboo spear in the closet, handled in secret.

The purple banana-seat of a new bicycle, my first.

New high-top shoes, black and white checked.

The asphalt, rising fast toward my pillion seat.

A tree-house.

A Snickers candy bar.