In the morning, my father breaks

a tooth biting down on chicharrón from the tiny tortillería,

open smile as he tells the story. He holds a hand

over the damage, casts a shadow over his speckled

face, over the black gap in his mouth

like a door. I walk through and see the same dark

my hands make when I reach for my own damp face

after finishing that love story I had been putting off,

the one in Wyoming. The one that ends

in a tire iron and empty shirts wearing each other.

In the morning, light breaks

itself open and I put on my clothes, tawny

worker’s jacket and Levi’s, pretend

that in this life I herd sheep, that in the next one

I’m tough enough not to feel a funeral in my brain

for the inevitable possum, whose skin breaks

open on the wide main road,

somersaulted heart next to its shell.

In the morning, morning breaks

and my heart animals, grows limbs and runs

into oncoming traffic, black hole in its chest

like a door, and this time

someone else walks through