A dream where I never felt closer to my dad

Buttoned egg white wedding suit,
men in a dream, same shapes except at malformed centers.
Father and son speaking as they never have—in secrets

to no music at home, just static noise through walls.
No one else lived here but we built in the deep rot.
He gave guts but this boy unmade his own heart.

Everyone’s lived happy except for men with my last name.
In one another, men see what’s saddest in ourselves and hold on—
a father crying for women he’s loved; his son not knowing how to.

Mourners of dead love, moments on water seeping through drywall,
on winds floating names tied to skies overlapping lamentations,
nouns dreamed to verbs that don’t make us men but means we are.

His teeth unroot at spelling out women never spoken of.
This is my body, son, see it fall to pieces.
The child becomes the parent’s fissuring secrets.

Father, son, and holes in enamel that time cratered,
too close to old names never freed of teeth,
a list of nothing but dreams others have had

drags the ceiling down to bodies as unspoken words collapse
shingles that only know us and could only keep us covered
to hold up so many secrets built inside its body.