A drinker’s baby

My father gulped vine

From a bowl,

Scrabbled four grapes only

From a glass
In his lonely carousing
Near dawn.

I counted
As one tumlbed

After another,

Another and

The other. 

At what I didn’t understand

I giggled.
At the wall,

The drunk man pelted his rage,
Gathering wool under the stain

When the day broke. 

Lilac kisses in the chalk,

bedded violently; 

Where my future to be found:

A sour-scented splatter. 

My wailing took march;
My mother's howling strung to a melisma.
Once where had bloomed innocence

Cannoned a great war.