A Birthday Poem
I called
and left a message
on your birthday; just
like I promised. And though
your mother will tell you
promises mean nothing
you should know
I called
I sang badly (on purpose)
and I thought about you,
wide-eyed non-child,
forced to see the truth
much younger
than I was.
You called
two days before
to tell me
your friend is dying
and I suppose,
with my usual
reticence, it may have seemed
like I didn’t care. But
(you should know)
I hate all that canned language;
the usually clichés people spout
when they know they’re not
brilliant enough to be quote worthy.
You didn’t call last week, you began,
and in your tone
I hear the echo
of that old condemnation
and I know
(I know)
where it comes from.
The reasons never matter.
The reasons have never mattered.
We are alike
in our total disregard
of anything not having to do
with us. You’re still hiding
behind other people’s problems
and trying to convince yourself
that goodness counts. I have since
given up trying to fake my concern
and retreat into the only honest thing
I have ever known.
A poem never lies,
non-child; and most people
never lie on purpose. Being born human
traps us all, and you
(and you)
are just beginning to see this
as your fifteenth year
rolls around and
by the grace
of one missed phone call
you decide
not to call me back.
Father / Not a Son
I’ve been told
the silence fell between us
when I turned thirteen; the way
mom (still) tells it, [I] just
stopped smiling one day
and
nobody ever really knew why.
I hadn’t yet found
the language to explain myself.
I was still scribbling
soppy poems and
frilly lines, swooning
over snobbish girls
and feeling guilty
because I fantasized
about them. But I knew,
somehow, that at least
I was being honest—
which should have counted
far more than it actually did.
I think I was angry.
Maybe. Angry
you never taught
me to throw a football,
or took me fishing,
or talked to me about baseball.
Not to say you didn’t love me.
But now I suspect
you were mired in your own shit:
your failing body,
the life you wanted,
the sons you thought you’d have,
the family that never understood
anything you you did, and never
accepted your insistence
on not explaining yourself
to their satisfaction.
Now the silence has crept
into my bones. My daughter
tells me she doesn’t know me
and I have difficulty explaining
that a man can only talk to so much
before the words start running together.
Daughter / Not a Father
Some images are stamped forever
whether I like them or not
and they return
with near hallucenogenic accuracy.
In the moment
you are three (or maybe four)
and I am not sure
your legs will carry you;
but they do. And the moment
I release you, you run
down the embankment that leads to the park,
onto the grass and towards
the merry-go-round. You are
laughing, wanting me
to chase you. And so I do –
beginning the pattern
that has defined our relationship
ever since.
