My mother returned from the carousel with our suitcases. He noticed my comic books weren’t English. I dared not rub my chin, lest it set him off. I began worrying that he was angry, though his expression belied that. I liked the sound, but stood there silently, noticing moist blue eyes under arched eyebrows. I didn’t understand a word as he lifted me off the floor and picked up my books. My chin throbbed from smashing it on the ground. I guess she never lied / maybe my mother was never wrong.Ī tall, thin man crashed into me in the crowded airport spilling me and my comic books across the floor. She said: take your curse, digest your sorrow, own your misery. I asked her /what do you want? what do you want my love? She opened her mouth as if she chokes. To think, I do not know your face father but I have a world of gist for you. If this poem is a wishing machine, I wish you were here as I held this glass in celebration of another year. Fuck! I miss you dad I really miss you I miss you by my breath. I do not know if I miss you, father but I know that birthdays are reminders for what we have lost. My mother delicately says I am too silent to be tolerated. Some mornings I stand before the mirror to see the kind of man my father is. The memory I have of my mother are insults and. In this poem, let me first describe my mother as. ![]() The first time I told a girl I love her I had to repeat and stretch it is a joke it is a joke nigga… Why? My mother said I am my father’s appearance, and like him I am not capable of loving a thing. He is critical and warm, and when with frisky peer and prudent flap he flies over the falling water, I rise to meet the ripples of his wake. He is benevolent, but not without standards. This lone bird is the yeoman of this territory. I feel I’ve joined the ranks of an elite syndicate, a metaphysical cartel. As he circles my realized sculpture, his slender form visible between its fraternal towers, he makes his position clear to me. His roles shift seamlessly: faithful mascot, self-appointed watchbird, ordinary denizen. The great egret checks in from time to time, appearing here and there, close at hand or far off in the distance. Recognizing the stony dedication of her future self undiminished, she flashes a grin equal parts wise and sheepish and returns to her station with renewed puissance. I feel her gaze and turn my face toward her, squinting and imperceptibly generous in the light of the laggard sun. The girl shepherds the stones with naive confidence, stealing a glance at me in my own concentrated stacking. “This might be the strongest current in the world.” “This is the strongest current in the world.” In keeping with little-documented childhood tradition, a girl of about seven chaperones the pack, the others lining the heaviest rocks they can carry across the stream’s small lip. The clarion clangor of nearby children is moderated by the rush of the stream. By the time I lift the fistful of dripping rocks from the ankle-deep water beside the bank of the beck, they are gone, their escape routes as ephemeral as their innards. Like the wings and the water, the fishes shimmying bodies are diaphanous, their viscera momentarily visible as they nibble the dead skin off my unshaved legs. I did not love them before, but I do now. I love them, their blue stickish torsos and jaunty meanderings. With each gossamer perch, they gently mock the harsh point of the index finger. Alone or in pairs, they skip from rock to rock like fairy godmothers, curating my materials with the spontaneous discernment that only insects possess. The varied trigonometries and subtle stench of the falls in the distance recede as the dragonflies guide me down a beckoning rivulet. I am building a rock tower, the kind that makes you think of Texas or possibly Colorado.
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