Helping My, By TODD MOORE

father burn his

novel a western he’d

hand me the pages a

few at a time & i’d

stuff them into an

old trash barrel

next to a junked

stove behind the

hotel here’s the

big gunfight chap

ter he’d say flames

going higher than

his hand we can

still stop i know

all the stuff

that happened

this far father’d

wave the offer away

& hand me more then

he’d chug some

whiskey & make a

face the last thing

he said that after

noon was you have

to be drunk to

do this it’s like

burning my name

“Helping My” appeared in Bogg 60, a journal of Anglo-American writing founded in 1968 and published out of Arlington, Va. Todd Moore’s serialized poem “Dillinger” is reviewed on Page 4.