reno’s dad was only a door away
and we couldn’t ever talk
so in the silence we did what
we could, sometimes
whispering
and in the morning when he
knocked his wife across the room
made her fall palms-down
against the hissing griddle of newly-burnt
potatoes
we watched the wall, the
window, anywhere but the door
and once, driven out to a ranch
in the middle of the desert,
smoking smuggled cigarettes
allowed us to feel superior
and then
he left taking the truck
and starving we joked
over stale cornflakes and powdered milk
softened with pump-water,
grateful
since hunger was then
new to me
while the radio
hissed hits from the city