The morning after my brother climbs in my bed & spends the whole night with his face in his hands, I go to the art museum. In the ancient section, I gaze down the glass avenues, examine each perfect rectangular lozenge & the sweets they hold: pottery shards, blown glass, nose-less marble, stone turned to sand. It is in the Attic Pottery Section, Circa 300 BC, that I realize I am surrounded by men: statues, busts, coins, relief etchings, drinking/fighting/fucking/praying, violent on red & black vase, half-beast in Egyptian statue, snarl-mouthed prayer votives, hands clasped in beg. The lone mummy, a man. I laugh because it is not funny, a crude joke, me surrounded by thousands of my father & none of his women, for once a pharaoh with no phalanx. I cannot take it. Then, to the left, on a lone wall, the giant arm of some lost wooden body, the painted skin deep ochre, russet, red river clay. Lightly muscled & slim, the slight bulb where the upper arm once connected with the shoulder, molded perfect. The forearm lean, built around the bone. Grey fingernails, a cracked palm turned inwards & curled.  The arm is making a fist. I know the arm will do what I have always needed it to do, free from the body & its complications. Leftovers & flotsam of a man, all I want from what remains of my father, the arm, to brush my hair before I fall asleep, bring me blueberries in a white bowl.

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