Come Pick Me Up

I hear his father wishes they hadn't bickered over politics
So much of their time spent in argument and bitterness
When wouldn't he have preferred to help build his son's house
To haul the beams, lay cement, to do it right the first time

But what he didn't know is: the house was his boy
Before it and he collapsed
Without warning trapping those outside, howling for help
From God from Jesus, from the same parties who'd withheld
His lover from his bed, through the grapevine
Nowhere now in this emergency, but their cries
Grow quieter and darker like all sirens chasing answers
From professionals like penance from priests
Whose costumes become grotesque walls of waiting
For any explanation, as if it could exhume him
And restore him to twenty-two and skinny
Fidgeting in his bed, tasting cities
To decide where to build and blare his embarrassing music
Like a tea kettle that's singing
"I'm ready, come pick me up"