In Newport I Watch My Father Lay His Cheek to a Beached Dolphin’s Wet Back

& close his eyes. His hair the shade

of its cracked flesh.

His right arm, inked with three falling

phoenixes—torches

marking the lives he had

or had not taken—cradles

the pinkish snout. Its teeth

gleaming like bullets.

Huey. Tomahawk. Semi

-automatic

as we sat in the Nissan, watching waves

brush over our breaths

when he broke for shore, hobbled

on his gimp leg. Mustard

-yellow North Face jacket

diminishing toward the grey life

smeared into ours. Shrapnel

-strapped. Bushwhacker. The last time

I saw him run like that, he had

a hammer in his fist, mother

a nail-length out of reach.

America. America a row of streetlights

flickering on his whiskey

-lips as we ran. A family

screaming down Franklin Ave.

ADD. PTST. POW. Pow. Pow. Pow

says the sniper. Fuck you

says the father, tracers splashing

through the palm leaves. Confetti

green, how I want you green.

Green despite the red despite

the rest. His knees sunk

in ink-black mud, he guides

a ribbon of water to the pulsing

blowhole. Ok. Okay. AK

-47. I am eleven only once

as he kneels to gather the wet refugee

into his arms. Waves

swallowing

his legs. The dolphin’s eye

gasping like a newborn’s

mouth. & once more

I am swinging open

the passenger door. I am running

toward a rusted horizon, running

out of a country

to run out of. I am chasing my father

the way the dead chase after

days—& although I am still

too far to hear it, I can tell,

by the way his neck tilts

to one side, as if broken,

that he is singing

my favorite song

to his empty hands.