He thought he was cute writing "I'm hungry" on paper,
showing her. "Then go eat," his mother wrote back
with but several feet between them.
A colorless gas ignited a blue fire.
What red she felt and on linoleum patterns
unlike her bare feet, stepping through the kitchen.
Found in natural gas and petroleum... propane... what red;
her son was a wreck of pistons and pregnancies,
Me? Really? I'm the shit. Check me.
his pump into the world a lewdness to her,
to a family name lineage, to purports of good mothering.
She heard him shout at happenings in a video game
from the other room.
He toppled always, sideways dick dumb in his hat logic.
The red was in ways light, carnation,
as the blood cooled and temples found looseness again,
a matter of time used as a fuel, a colorless gas used as a fuel,
a grilled sandwich cooked on a range,
for him, the boy man, her stumpy son,
the dumb dick in his sideways hat and toppled logic—
"Here's your lunch," the mother-soon-grandmother said,
walking into the living room, talking to him again.
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