I threw a chair at my dad and he died (a tubular
ladder back, joined like our intertidal Jesus, so
no nails, algal-stained, ascendable and bloody,
a rude instrument, whiny with that all-thanatic
force of theophany, and flotsam-pride fangled)
because the ring-ship’s artificial gravity is off-
kilter. But the palm-woven seat warped in dome
3 yard 1’s humid heat, and my dad confusingly
resurrected as an ectoplasmic anemone surging
from the weird fronds. Tripped by the fence of
a carambola tree, I crashed through the domino
table, and crawling out its dotty splinters, faced
dad’s new shape crying in the chair: “Thanks I
get for fleeing your creditors!” O the guilt rays
peel this skull free of wrapping paper skin and
knock the noisy rattler, my turkey vulture head,
round and round. Brindis for the funder-galaxy,
raise the receipts: all for education and for none.