Trying to explain

the unexplainable recesses and abscesses of memory,
the fingerprints of fists or wide leather leather belts
or wrenches,
the way that they were always drunk, how even
if they did not drink they were intoxicated
with their rage or violence or past,
and in their eyes was the fast-fade
of crimson food-coloring in a river
as an osprey’s talons clutched a trophy
in a competition without a recorded name,
and always afterward, their chests heaving from exhaustion,
the fire quelled, our misbehavior or existence culled,
they gave their mottled features over to the
ecstasy of brutality while we painted our faces
with the salt of eternal oceans.
If one could be beaten without feeling hated
then perhaps it would not be so bad.