survivor man 

show me how to shuck a desert.
i watched in the summer when the windows
turned into gnat wings.
my brother & i home alone 
in the house without a door.
he put the leaves in his mouth. 
we would do the same in the yard
with the spring onions. surviving beneath
the sap-sick pine. he fished with his hands.
plucked bees from the sky. 
slept inside the body of a great beast.
sometimes i would take notes
in case i ever found myself
alone. the black  & white marble notebook
open like a butchered bird.
nothing but a knife. i took out
the kitchen knives & laid them in a row
on the table. traced the blades to find
which one was the sharpest. that one
i would steal in the event of a great
survival. when it rained. water soaked
through to his bones. i shivered too.
wondered what it would be like
to sleep in the yard without any skin.
i wished i could survive like he did.
instead, the summer shrank. my father
filled orange paint buckets with amber bottles. 
laughed at the lilting moon. 
boredom like a third brother in 
the old farmhouse. wind & the gritty speakers
at the local pool. school, the always impending doom. 
small again in the halls that smelled
like bleach. i wanted to crouch in the brush.
dirt beneath my fingernails. only for me
no camera crew. just the best kitchen knife
& maybe a lighter from the birthday drawer.