Jordaan Mason and the Horse Museum-(s)mother

the doctors told him, he’d be gone by now 
his lungs full of blankets: burnt, black, and bound 
he buried his family in the backyard 
flooded the basement, filled it up with tar 
we borrowed their old clothes, and then we undressed 
we stole a trampoline and made it our mattress 
and slept with all the houselights on waiting for them to come 
he said: ‘it’s so much easier to believe in nothing; 
it’s so easy to wait impatiently to die.’ 
he pulled his pants around his ankles 
and he showed me all the places he went purple 
because he held too hard his own skin 
since no one else would touch him 
and i (s)mothered him, beastly 
and we shared our severed head dreams 
i held him where the sickness was 
and i nursed him through the night 
we stayed that way all night