"Night Sky with Exit Wound" by Ocean Vuong (Cape, 2017)

Poems from APR, Boston Review, Narrative, The Nation, New Yorker, Poetry, Poetry Ireland, Poetry Review, etc. There are many eye-catching metaphors and similes. Several of the following puzzle me. Some look like a straightforward comparison given an extra twist to make it incomprehensible. Here I'm quoting them out of context, but I don't think the context would help.

• He is so still I think// he could be anyone's father, found/ the way a green bottle might appear// at a boy's feet containing a year/ he has never touched (p.7) - Eh?
• The dress/ petaling off him like the skin/ of an apple (p.9) - "dress petaling off" is ok, but I don't get the rest.
• O mother,// O minute hand, teach me/ how to hold a man the way thirst// holds water (p.12) - I presume "minute" refers to time rather than size. Maybe the narrator wants to learn patience.
• silent & heavy // as an amputated hand (p.16) - I think an amputated hand would be surprisingly light. Maybe that's the point.
• The way the barrel, aimed at the sky, must tighten/ around a bullet// to make it speak (p.17) - I'm happier with that.
• Stupid boy./ You can get lost in every book/ but you'll never forget yourself/ the way god forgets his hands (p.19). "god forgets his hands"? If this is good, why do the big indents (not shown here) make it better?
• Instead, let it be the echo to every footstep/ drowned out by rain, cripple the air like a name// flung onto a sinking boat (p.25) - the footsteps don't have echoes, and in what sense do shouted names cripple the air?
• I am ready to be every animal/ you leave behind (p.29) - ok
• When our lips touched the day closed/ into a coffin (p.30) - doesn't work for me. Sounds too intellectual.
• You're so quiet you're almost// tomorrow (p.35) - I guess so
• found the heart// not the size of a fist// but your mouth opening// to the width/ of Jerusalem (p.36) - "width of Jerusalem"?
• If only/ he dies the second his name becomes a tooth/ in your mouth (p.38) - eh?
• They say the sky is blue/ but I know it's black seen through too much distance (p.47) - ok
• Fingers blurred,/ I play what I know/ from listening to orchards/ unleash their sweetest/ wrongs (p.48) - puzzling
• Turn back & find the book I left/ for us, filled/ with all the colors of the sky/ forgotten by gravediggers. Use it to prove how the stars/ were always what we knew// they were: the exit wounds/ of every/ misfired words (p.56) - this has many extra indents. Why? The imagery nearly holds together for me - "sky" connects with the later "stars"; "book" connects with "words".
• Red is only black remembering (p.72) - ok
• Your dead friends passing/ through you like wind through a wind chime (p.79) - ok, but I think I've seen it before

"Seventh Circle of Earth" is blank except for numbers to footnotes, and the footnotes.