Jeff Burt

What the Boy Heard

1

Better leave space
when you work with me
his father with trowel and apron
told the boy about his stream of syllables,
but what the boy heard
was to lay his words as close as bricks
but leave room for mortar,
that sealed lips meant time together,
that his mother and father disliked
long conversation, often could sit
in the same room and not speak.

Better leave space
the mother whispered,
meaning he could no longer
rub against her as they walked,
but the boy heard
he’d outgrown affection.

Better leave space,
the brother said to the boy,
packing his handgun
and brown bag of pills in the closet,
so things can be hidden.

2 

You’re in luck, his father said,
but what the boy heard,
was that life was a town he would pass through
until he was out of it.

You’re lucky,
the boy heard,
a more or less permanent state
his mother used about his father
for marrying her,
and once, in a hoarse whisper,
his grandmother had said
about his mom for marrying her father.

I hope you get lucky,
his big brother’s friend smirked
when he went off with his Loretta,
and returned from the brambles
behind Murphy’s in the field
with the abandoned two-story,
he smelling of spoiled summer blackberries,
she of dirt.

3

Don’t you go non-linear on me,
his father said,
and what the boy heard
was that lines were his father’s friends,
that he should not cross them
like in a coloring book.

Don’t you go non-linear on me,
his mother said,
and what the boy heard
was that he acted in some type of arc,
an ellipse, a circling back,
perhaps already wandering off
in his thoughts by thinking
of the beautiful figure eight.

Don’t you go non-linear on me,
his brother said,
and what the boy heard were words
that were warm, loving,
a reaching beyond the lines to comfort him,
that talk was straight between them
and to spiral away meant no longer to connect.

4

Did you hit it off his mother asked
and the boy imagined the girl
had been a doll at the fair
standing on a shelf
and he could have won her
if he had thrown harder.

Did you hit on it
his brother asked,
and the boy imagined a violence
that did not match his fragile infatuation,
but that a fist might provide
what his brother desired.

Is she a hit
his father asked
and the boy imagined her as a ball
soaring past him in the outfield,
a ball he would never catch up with,
that would go over the fence, unattainable.

You’ve got a hit,
the father said to the brother,
talking about the girl that hung out in his room,
and the boy heard fishing,
starting with a nibble, then a tug,
then pulled hard to set the hook
until the fish lunged from the water,
the boy heard the surface break
and the girl hooked, hooked
to the violent lips of his brother.

5

Cut it out, his brother said,
but what the boy heard
was a knife chasing a thorn into the wound.

Cut if out, his mother said,
with the slice of a hand across her neck
meaning to keep quiet,
but what the boy heard
was the loss of his uncle’s arm from the war,
the lame stub above the elbow that didn’t flap.

Cut it out, his father said with a growl
when the boy punched his father’s shoulder
looking for playful affection,
but what the boy heard
was the command to sever,
not to quit, so went in for one more round.

6.

You’re a walking catastrophe,
his father said,
but what the boy heard
was that he was mobile, like a tornado,
that he could spin on his own course,
touch down with violence wherever he liked,
make things explode or implode with his whim.

You’re a catastrophe waiting to happen,
his mother said,
but what the boy heard
was the splitting of atoms in his gut,
the spinning going out of control,
not with vomit but with an anxiousness
towards anger, as if a dam
had not burst but was about to,
and his lips were a levee
holding back a breach of bad words.

You’re like a ticking time bomb,
a natural catastrophe,
his brother said,
but what the boy heard
was that he was made to explode,
made to delay, made to hold
enormous potential energy in his tiny body,
made to disrupt time itself,
to blast the sequencing of time
from past to present to future to everything now,
to the moment they would remember
only his tick, tick, tick.

Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California, with his wife. He has worked in electronics and mental health services. He has contributed to Rabid Oak, Williwaw Journal, Red Wolf Journal, and Brazos River Review.