trench

my dad likes to tell me about
trench warfare whenever i call him
trying to be his son. he keeps a shovel 
beneath his tongue. we are a family
who digs. he puts on his world war one face
& slips between the folds of the earth.
i find trenches wherever i go.
some of them are full of sea monsters
& some of them are full of people
who want to kill me. i used to want
to tell him how scared i am 
of the world i'm living in. now,
i have mostly given up. i know
he can't save me. the whole thing
about trenches is you always need a new one.
they are an instrument of taking 
the land. here is my soil. here is the border
from which i end & you begin. 
curtains for gills. the smell of rotting birds.
he finds rats. names them after
his kids. puts them in tiny uniforms
& instructs them to fight alongside him.
there is no war & there is always a war.
both in our house & in this country.
i wish he could see the one i'm fighting.
the one where my friends disappear
& the one where my government wants eat me.  
the truth about my father is 
that he is too old to fight
most gods. he holds a gun like a spatula.
i remember how, once, in the middle
of winter we went out into the field.
i dug at the cold earth until i had 
a place to hide. there is nothing for me
in a trench. the ghosts there are hungry 
& have nothing to say. my father is
not my father there. on the phone he details
to me exactly how his men advanced.
how the bullets came. there are no bullets.
the clouds have taken to bullets. 
i do not want to be a man anymore
but i know i am. i have seen the soil turned.
the bone beneath flesh. the edge of a shovel
turn into the edge of a knife. then, also, i have been
my father in the shadows, dressing 
the rats. taking them to fight in order
to feed the trench its ghosts.