Do the Right Thing (1989)

Sister stands in the lake with me.
She has mud just under her chin;
The lip bit under lip. 

I cut her hamstrings.
She slips underneath the water.

*

Sister marries
A nice, balding, carpet salesman.
She paints

Or collages in a studio.  I do not, anymore,
Put my
Fists into walls.

Her work flat, a lot
Of primary colors: a tomboy
Laughing; a dog,

Its left eye cut out
Its right eye cataracted.

The dog tastes the tomboy’s wet legs.

*

My father and mother will
Burn the house down—everyday
I pray for it. 

Poem for Narrative People

         for Pete, who is not one

I have gained 15 pounds
And I carry
The fat like a veil. 

 *

God ain’t all
Infinite and shit
He or She has boundries

Proven by five-year-olds
Who rub periwinkle
Over God's guns for arms,

Drawn and redrawn.
We see the eraser marks
And the dug-in gray

Of where the pencil dulled
On the body.
And they also crown Him or Her

With a gaudy claw.
But thank Him the kids don't assume
He listens to jazz or honky tonk

Or She pets the souls of dodos,
She picks silphium
In some pretty garden: God just blahs.

________________________________________

Phil Estes' work has appeared in Beecher's, Hayden's Ferry Review, Willow Springs and others, with work forthcoming in Acreage, Diagram, and Sonora Review.   He lives in Stillwater, Oklahoma.