he has become comfortable enough to blow his nose
but leaves his shoes on when he enters the house
the adopted neuroses of his parents 
ensure
that if i ever bore his children
they would never touch
the mighty mississippi river
or taste cookie dough, raw and sweet

i have become freud’s oedipus
scrubbing off his sweat
in hot water
i can still hear my mother say 
“you were conceived the first time your father and i…”
and “those narcotics tore our family apart” 
a weary sigh as i clean the room
from the last night
and the last and the last and
the condom wrapper floating in the backwash
forty ounce beer
shoved - courteously - under
my own bed
i do not know what enraptures me more:
the olfactory ghost of him in the sheets or
the ecstasy of washing it out

there is humility in both
my waning tolerance and my
waxing affinity 
i suffer more sisyphean pain
than the tides of
the ocean
or planets in orbit