When my hair is short and my face becomes coarse from days' age,
I cannot tell myself apart from my father.

In mirrors and photographs and the eyes of who I love,
I see my father before I see myself.  

My father's dimmed reflection through mine;
my successes, failures;  
these my father make with me.

I see my father sick in his son's cigarette smoke.
I see how my sleep makes him healthy.

I feel my father's calm, honest tremble at the animal inside of me.
My father's stillness when the glass under my skin breaks.
My father's smile beneath mine.  

I speak and it is my father's voice.
My father's voice of reason, my father's desperation.  
My father's voice under mine speaking to that missionary:

            (I cannot trust conditional morality as an absolute truth)          
            (I won't trust ****** even if it calls me friend)
           (I know love happened before you invented God)  

Beneath my laugh, the echoe of my father's joy.  
Beneath my violence, my father's fear.
Beneath my awe, my father's humility.  

I see my father with me,
I see
me,  
my father's son,
my father's son,
my father's son.