Take Back

My knees, my joints, my ligaments
stretched in a foul midnight air, these
insects rubbing their legs,
the folded bodies so close
in us. Take
back, regret

that I did not touch
my father’s slumber, did not
regard the dying man, did
what I shouldn’t have done,
said, droned, my brute knowledge
disembodied. Take
back the beast, my
mouth, the heat, my
silence suffocating
that wends,
winds, that flies
in every face
to find you.