I swore I would not write a poem for my father,
who hated poetry
and poets
and most things,
as though it would dishonor him—
his bookish daughter
who cried too easily;
who sat silently through dinner;
who slipped quietly from rooms
as he entered,
still thinking she was better than him.
Fifteen years later,
I find myself in Boston,
rattling through cool tunnels
below the city of my birth.
I think I see him—
younger than he could have ever been;
but still, the white t-shirt,
the thin mouth,
the blue eyes that I did not inherit—
and what disturbs me the most
is not that I have just seen my dead father
step out of a train into
the cool white,
the great big;
it's that my first thought is
I hope he doesn't see me.
So I am trying to love him.
I am writing a poem for my father
who smelled like
cigarettes
and soap
and sawdust
and raised five girls on a quarryman's pay,
and I am crying,
but it feels different this time.
Jan 1, 2011
Jan 1, 2011 at 12:17 PM UTC
I swore I would not write a poem for my father,
who hated poetry
and poets
and most things,
as though it would dishonor him—
his bookish daughter
who cried too easily;
who sat silently through dinner;
who slipped quietly from rooms
as he entered,
still thinking she was better than him.
Fifteen years later,
I find myself in Boston,
rattling through cool tunnels
below the city of my birth.
I think I see him—
younger than he could have ever been;
but still, the white t-shirt,
the thin mouth,
the blue eyes that I did not inherit—
and what disturbs me the most
is not that I have just seen my dead father
step out of a train into
the cool white,
the great big;
it's that my first thought is
I hope he doesn't see me.
So I am trying to love him.
I am writing a poem for my father
who smelled like
cigarettes
and soap
and sawdust
and raised five girls on a quarryman's pay,
and I am crying,
but it feels different this time.
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