my father is building me a bookshelf:
we laugh about suicide Twizzlers
and falling down 
cisterns to sit with Pop-pop 

he doesn't know it yet but
my father is building me a bookshelf--
he has been since i was born
and he could hold me like a Heisman trophy
you see--
i come from a line of men 
who fall down cisterns to hide from
their own depression-- 
craft stain glass windows
from green and brown beer bottles--
my grandfather drank whiskey
before he died-- tapped 
his cane all the way down to the reservoir 
of rain water-- fell in ash--
left his cane by the front door
of the red chicken coop--
my father says that Pop-pop liked
to say that no one would find
him in the underground well--
the thick stony vein in the yard--he
could wait there and finally
be alone--
and it's funny because when
we say we want to be alone
but we really just want 
to be loved as tall
as a bookshelf-- sculpt
bookends from our own spines--
we want
to die but only faintly--
like the light in a stained glass
window made of whiskey bottles--
we wake up wanting to die
and go to bed wanting to die
but only part of us-- the part
of us we seal in the cistern--
we aren't a fan 
of dramatic exits--
my father twists a stone well
from a fist of Twizzlers 
--ear buds in another
90s punk video where he remembers 
himself as Kurt Cobain--
shot gun full of Twizzler teeth--
until I was ten I was at least
sure that he might be John Lennon--
my father has fallen down cisterns
but we don't leave him alone--
we know he builds things
to keep himself out of rain water--
I build my walls with words 
and he uses wood-- my father
taught me to put love in a bookshelf
-- my cistern is
a poem-- a dog eared page--
a chapter book simmered over a night light--
sometimes i wish my father was sitting
in a rocking chair while i fall asleep--
my father is building me a bookshelf
and we don't know how tall it will
be yet-- 
he adds another row each year--
writes letters in flyleaf pages
to thrown down the well--
some nights me and him will sit there
with my grandfather
just to hear our voices echo--
i told my father that i'm like
him-- that i always kind of
want to die and i know he doesn't say 
anything because sometimes
there's nothing you need to say--
there's only mornings to cut out
of wood-- a basement light--
the yawn of a staircase-- 
my words cooked over a night light--
my father sneaking out of my bed room
so as to not wake me up--
i spent two years pretending to sleep
so he could leave--
sometimes i wonder if he knew--
we both went to bed fumbling our
way 
down the stair case made of green
beer bottles-- 
twist tongues like Twizzlers--
burn suicide notes in the nightlight--
pass a whiskey bottle with my grandfather
whose laugh can't be contained 
by a cistern
yes my father has been building me
a bookshelf every morning--
i have yet to find something
to build for him--
for now i'll dig in the yard
with a stanza-- make our
spines into bookends--
pray poetry over a nightlight
Our fathers who art in a cistern
hallowed be thy bookshelf--
our kingdom in rain water
and fists of Twizzlers