re-fathering

the corn maze stole our pelvises
& rattle-snake shook in the pink wind.
i crawled inside. reptiled 
on my belly. tasted the air
with a tea spoon & the atmosphere
was thick as cream. how deep the maze goes
no one is sure. it began one afternoon
with a father who wanted to lose 
his children. he planted & pictured 
& laughed his vertabrae into a maze. 
his children disappeared quickly
as all children do when their father
invents them a beautiful trap. they grew back
as single stalks & their corn 
tasted like metal. they gave up
on retreiving their bones but not me.
i learned to slither.
i learned bathroom tile across my skin
to make scales. tried to stop thinking 
of nightlights & the scruff of mean's beards
as i became smoother & smoother despite
the dirt. in danger, men get rigid
but queers, we polish. i could feel 
my lapis showing & by quartz face.
i talked to the corn children 
thinking they would point me 
towards that bone i craved but 
they had been too long in the labrinth--
too committed to lostness. they turned me
every which way. i trusted only 
a single cloud who nodded when i was
getting closer. landscapes
are mostly un-trustworthy.
the father was my own but he could
have been anyone's you know? all fathers
share that looming. what does it matter
whose father it was & how he grabbed
my hips like a skull? i dug the bone free
with my bare hands. soil under my nails
& the children all hissing & whining.
throwing tandrums because they didn't want
me to leave them to their sorrowing.
i told them that soon enough it would be winter
& they would wither to nothing but necks.
this didn't comfort them but 
you can't comfort the betrayed. oh brothers,
someday i'll return with a fresh father
made of lambs ear & wool. 
until then i know you will go on
baring metal kernals & misguiding 
each stranger sibling who stumbles inside. 
i escaped & the air ripended to red.
i put my pelvis on 
like a skull.