Here is everything that we have agreed upon by proxy of a handplant- tagged by the immeasurable pull from the nurturing phobics who stretched out the elastic waistband for as far as a holiday dinner can lean. Choking bones and purple flesh are not to be dismissed as the framework for a biographical poem, but is the nature of the cursing as mechanical as a heated pool releasing an icy frost-dressing it up as heated steam? I too slam the table, but with a half full fist instead of the corner posting that jars the sternum from the thickening beef. Slippery words were lobbed, not out of desperate politeness but rather of abrasive relief. And then dessert was served, and we all ate with urgency, for some it was uncomfortable, for me I imagined that my whispers were the breeze hopping along the driveway that leads towards the stained leaves of a shadowy street. The family room would eventually yield a nervous chance to reconcile with what I had feared for far too long, as a benefactor who had reached down to fold a sibling’s napkin-nixed by a silver gleam. I was a homegrown adversary of a pendulum that swung back and forth between poisoned love and reassuring contempt. Still, dark paths eventually lead to well-lit highways that vanquished all but wasted time. Pills and chats helped-as a hand holding a swinging door, feeling as if we were finally civilized only to be rammed by a cart that dirty looks suggested must have acted on its own-for accountability finds fingers stretching to avoid a cold sweat, or worse yet, confidence overruled- the lap holds many secrets-none of which it is designed to keep. Suddenly the scales on the forehead and the strands of falling hair are beyond the farthest reaches of being plural. Most certainly, I can accept an aching forearm and the twisting burn that swims with the white fluffiness and the setting colors of the rushing blood. On the couch, I am pulled back to the shower and the doorbell, perhaps the bottle of wine was more than capable of standing up on its own receipt. The lonely highway is never offended by the turnaround, self-preservation is understood as silence that is indiscreet.