cane raze he said he could feel the ligaments lengthen in his lame right leg. he stole the staff a stranger was leaning on and treated it as an afterthought, stomping on the sidewalk until he fell. i asked if any of that made him feel any better. he said it didn't. he wanted to test himself. he came up short. but now he had a story to tell. here's mine. i once forced my hands to memorize the hooked handle of a thick stick of oak that propped up someone who was dead before i was born. i was a child imitating a man whose only legacy was the fear he beat into his wife and children. they let their voices catch in their throats to save themselves from a deeper hell than the one he kicked them into. when he was rotting in the ground, they breathed their hate into me. we all burn on nights like this, but some of us do what we can to stop the fire from spreading. if i still had what was his, i'd grind it down to sawdust. 220617 what's it to you? who go blather from