06-23-21

Last weekend
I found
what seems to be a poem
in the nightstand
in the duplex my father stopped 
sleeping in a while back.
Blue ink in Spanish cursive
on both brown yellow sides
the blue lines faded.
I don't know if he wrote it
and I don't really understand it
as I transcribe
afraid I need to get it down digitally
before it explodes or something.

There are sections
10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60
and I don't know if these refer to age
or if he was just stylin'.
There's a note
at the bottom
instructing me to turn the page.
I want to love it
because I want writing from my father
But my father was so dry
and this is about
a river in Cuba.
So I worry my mother wrote this
and I am twisted
because I don't want 
to love anything
from my mother. 

So I type
digging out
untangling his script
looking words up to see if they match
what I believe to be the sentiment
from
this distant hum of a thing
scritching at the base of my brain
finding that he used 
aurora
enchantress
and wrote of delivering hallelujahs
to a woman at the mouth of a river
or it's a metaphor
for drinking from her chalice.
I don't believe in gods
but damn it
I want to believe
my father
was a poet like me
though he never gave off
the lilt of lyricism
aside from the way
he sang Hola Soledad
recently:
a lament.

When I get to the part
about bitter years imprisoned
I know it has to be him.
I sob
and remember his simple response
when asking for a reason:
BECAUSE SOMEBODY JUST WANTED TO.

It ends with wondering
about the woman
and children
who would never bear his eyes, hair, or name
and a ghost who escapes a well
with something 
that was never his.
I know
this stupid lucky ghost.
He wanted his father's words
and got a poem.
I know this fucker well.

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