amber

through his beer bottles
everyone is amber. i use them 
like binoculars standing beneath
the ghost tree. my father cuts off his limbs
& i watch them grow back like
a harvestman. i know the sound
of the bottles kissing in a plastic tub.
we carry them out to the curb 
so that they can be melted down 
& used to make more dusk & more fathers.
on our street you can tell a lot about the fathers
by their recycling buckets. cans & green bottles
& cans & wine bottles. the man who rides 
a scooter takes his cans somewhere
to make a few extra dollars. when it rains 
i steal a few bottles. undress them 
like dolls. their glass so smooth 
in the grey overcast light. i crouch down.
fit myself inside. wait for a father
to swallow me whole. every father 
is zeus or whoever it was in that myth who ate
his kids. in the heat the bottles smell
like warm bread. in the dark, i find dinosaurs
waiting, caged in the bottles. i let them out
& show them where we buried the chicken &
where the mosquitoes swarm this time
of year. they ask if my father
is home. i lie to them & tell them no one is home.
"it's only me." the dinosaurs tell me,
"then you are your father." i put on my
binoculars & there he is with his little t-rex arms.
& his mouth askew. the sun turns into
a spider. i remember it is unkind to smash them
& so i just watch it scurry slowly away
until it is dark & all the bottles look black
even in the porch light.