aayoungi long for the way
your stubble beard felt on my little girl skin
my fingers tracing stars on your sandpaper
how safe it was
to curl up on your chest
tucked beneath your chin
as we swayed gently
in your old leather rocker
.
dozing and certain god was in heaven
.
there are days now
daddy
when i’ve come to believe
jesus called in sick for the second coming
and my fingers running through
blades of grass on your grave
would do
this poem
just placed its fingers
to delicate collar bone
and looked at you in such a way
that only a woman who knows
her daddy was a well deposed king
may do
silently saying
were he not my father
i could love you
i wouldn’t call it an altar
it’s less official
merely a shelf of irreplaceable things
two garnets
the twins’ birth stones
a statue sculpted
by a local artist named mckeown
of me
holding the boys
right after they were born
a silver piece from my brother
a two dollar bill from my grandfather
memaw’s watch and engagement ring
a rosary i bought when i was 10 from a thrift store because it spoke to me
and a small framed photograph
of my mother and father
taken after a late night of playing rook
with friends
him standing behind her
when they were in love
my father eyes are full of whiskey
my mother sober as a baptist judge
and you can tell by the way
she cradles his hands
around her waist
that she is tired
and keenly aware
all things are fleeting
it wasn’t until this day i noticed
they are posed
by the back door of our long ago little house
in the picture
as if they are leaving
thank you, mom
for making me
the daughter
of red injuns
white pastors
tobacco farmers
beauty queens
swaggering outlaws
and world famous circus giants
thank you
for my self worth
legs
breasts
and sass
thank you for the thousandth book
you ever read to me
and lined the walls of my room with
hard bound histories passed down through the family
golden books, encyclopedias, dictionaries
thank you for giving me my grasp of language as a gift
thank you for making kentucky my cradle
and giving me cincinnati as my own personal museum and medical library
thank you for every time your arms have caught me as i was falling
thank you for always having a piano
thank you for your love
thank you, mom
for making me
there is an old reel to reel memory
burned onto my psyche’s screen
of my fallen god
the father
throwing a planet sized
console television set out the front door
off the porch
and into the yard
in a fit of rage
eventually replaced by a larger zenith console tv
to erase the damage done
the scene horrified me for years
as his vengeance that night
could not be contained
by the red brick of the house
but as i bashed a $3oo cell phone
with a hammer
into the floor of a deserving verizon store
a warming contentment wrapped it’s arms around me
i realized i truly am my father’s daughter
and i loved him all the more for
the genetic ability
to shatter minds and electronics
i didn’t remember
the place
it held no special
fascination
in fact
upon stopping
i concluded it presented with
the patina of a general store
that hasn’t been patronized
regularly
since the civil war
a defunct garage
whose oil slicks
and greasy fingerprints
never quite faded
the filling station still attached
vestigial limbs
and all i need of the world
is a damned ginger ale
the olfactory sense
indeed smell
is most closely tied
and evocative of
long forgotten memories
upon crossing the ruin’s threshold
this dynamic enveloped me
time faded
to a sepia and cream
1979
this is the autumn
of my second year on earth
yes two
because that’s how many fingers
i’m told to hold up
i am in his left arm
too little to walk here
his
black suede cologne
and blue shirt i cling to
candy cigarettes, circus peanuts,
loose tobacco, boston baked beans,
royal crown cola,
and ring pops
observed for sale
he bought me a much wanted moon pie
the color flooded over
back to now
and my cheeks are wet
but how good it was
to see him
to be carried again