Having Never Said the Kaddish

Having held down the past
applying pressure to its sacrum, having considered murdering
the groundhog who had burrowed under the back porch, having remembered
a murdered groundhog from many years ago, inert as the folded future
purring inside its pelt anticipating praise, having abandoned hopes
for a long life, having felt my skin blossom into something
halfway between clay and unutterable tattoos,