On Lancing An Infection
	Finish high school Tuesday,
	Skip graduation rights,
	Blink my eyes,
	Find myself lost
	In the crowd of a Houston airport;
	All eyes turn away.
	Much later,
	See him leaning against a pillar
	Wearing the tacky suit of a cigar salesman
	And an idiot's grin.
	We meet with a hesitant handshake;
	Sputter wordless
	On the dilapidated Pinto
	To the house of his mother
	Where he lives.
	Says he has to go sell something -
	His job forever.
	I'm left with his mother,
	A nice old lady it seems.
	We play gin and draw pictures of cats.
	He arrives.
	Says he wants to get acquainted
	At a bar down the road.
	He orders drinks,
	Asks if I have a girlfriend.
	I say, "Yeah," even though I don't.
	He tries to pick up the barmaid.
	She smiles.
	I wonder how he does it.
	We play a game of pool.
	He wins.
	I can't play pool.
	Asks if I believe in God,
	Proselyting the pagan boy.
	"I don't know."
	The drinks affect me.
	Can see his lips moving
	As his image fades.
	I blink.
	There are tears in my mother's eyes.
	I see this man smacking her,
	Throwing furniture,
	Punching walls.
	"Daddy, please, don't break my rocking chair!"
	My heart splinters.
	I blink again.
	And remember him by the pillar at the airport.
	I see his face,
	His eyes. He looks like me.
	Have to get some air.
	Someone's shaking me.
	I awake on the porch of his mother's house.
	Its morning.
	We're inside now.
	He's with a woman.
	I don't like her. Am I jealous?
	See my mother's eyes again.
	His lips are moving. He looks like me.
	He laughs.
	Something breaks....
	My mouth explodes
	And sprays heated words upon his empty eyes
	Which they receive with wet surprise.
	"Hit me! Try and hit me!"
	His hands fall.
	"I'm your father."
	"No. My father died a long time ago.
	You're just an old man."
	I turn away,
	"Why did you leave us?"
	The wound of a three-year-old child
	With the face of a teenager
	Splatters the old man.
	Cauterized and light-headed
	I hit the Texas freeways
	And point my thumb toward home.