all my fathers make as they enter

the skin of the lake. My name is hooded

diver on a string, little Red Head bastard.

Without a sound I call my mothers down to eat.

They beat, beat, slant to water & stitch

feet to the reflection of feet. I'm a favorite

child of the gouge & the knife, the human

hand that makes a collar about the ruby

neck of my father. He & my other fathers

drove down through shallows like drill bits

& they came up silver. My name is the spoils

of thin flesh, the minnow's salt eye

plucked clean for a mother. Call me game

over. Wild diamond rocking on the floor

of a predatory boat. Point & say sweet traitor

to the wood & water for wanting to be made

of both. My name is I know not what I am

as a country of mothers & fathers comes down.

They call me sleeping beauty. I dream I am

in flight, body unfolding, folding, a bullet

wounding water again & againthe mysterious

love of a father & mother a two-barreled

gaze. The gun in my dream speaks my name

& sees a beating vein. Takes aim