OUR FATHER HAIKU
Every night,
in my room,
in the comfort of dark,
on my knees
I prayed.
September 6, 2016
A MONTH OF SATIE
Satie in the background,
melodious companion,
do I need more?
September 14, 2016
LEAVING HOME
Father at sixteen in 1917,
on a spring day,
dropped the reins to the mule,
unhitched him from the plow
in the field,
and ran away from home
to join the circus.
He had no family communication
till he returned by train in 1922
proudly wearing a silk shirt
and a straw boater,
no longer a country boy,
but the cock of the walk
as he stepped off the train
from Chicago.
September 11, 2016
AARON GIVING ME A BATH
“You only get to keep what you refuse to let go of.”
—from HERE I AM by Jonathan Safran Foer
It has come to this?
My hands,
unresponsive pieces
of hanging meat are
as Father said
of every deceased relative
Dead as Kelsey’s nuts!
They drop the soap,
the washcloth could be lead,
I lean on the cane
to steady the sway
as the steam
wraps me in a cloud
like a sustaining vapor.
Who was Kelsey anyway?
The last time I was bathed by someone
other than Aaron—
I presume it was Mother
or her maid Lucy Hawkins
(always referred to by Mother as her Colored Maid)—
was so long ago I don’t remember it.
But I know it happened.
Fading, ghostly Polaroids
would confirm the fact
that if my childhood was anything,
it was well documented.
You were so gentle
as if you thought you would break me,
or break me further
as you slid the luffa
between my crack
and over my balls
liberating my musky smell,
removing the caked shit,
a product of my inadequate,
impossible wiping.
I can no longer successfully wipe my ass.
I silently repeated to my self
I will not get hard
I will not get hard
I will not get hard.
A mantra in trilogy during this clinical function
I remained as soft as your touch.
I smell of Dr. Bronner’s Lemon Soap.
I steal a glance.
Your expression is the epitome
of concentration.
You make a joke. We laugh.
It was a response that was required.
Your Stepfather screaming
You little Faggot,
the words like fist to face,
as he locked you on the front porch
during a violent thunder storm,
was, he said, to teach you, to cure you,
To make you a man!
Unknowingly he gave you more
than he took away.
The installation of his hate
was a meal unconsumed
and left cold on the plate.
In his attempt to cut you down,
he made you grow
to become a man with an expansive heart.
A heart he would not have.
Over two decades later
it brought you to an assisted bath.
for Father on his 115th birthday
September 18, 2016
