Lauren Camp: Sanctuary
That was Sunday. The village. I was a baby sugared
with indulgence. Fat and black-haired. Those years
of his unfolding wallet and the ongoing thorn
of origin.
Desne A. Crossley: Alzheimer’s and Missing Love (2015-2017, 1996 & 1950)
Watched the movie Hidden Figures (when the first black women worked in the Nasa space program) and almost cried. My father was a rocket scientist, something I didn’t realize until his brain was already gone to Alzheimer’s.
Rosaly DeMaios Roffman: How My Father Does It
Tomorrow, I fly home to teach Prometheus—
that story of saving the universe with fire
and then enduring the eagle punishment
but my raised voice will be for my father
Robbi Nester: Delicious
For me,
love has to rise like bread dough, worked until
it has a tender crumb. It’s not simple, though maybe
simplicity might come, if I work hard enough.
Diane di Prima: To My Father
In my dreams you stand among roses.
You are still the fine gardener you were.
You worry about mother.
You are still the fierce wind, the intolerable force
that almost broke me.
Robert Cording: Dome Houses
When erected, the domes must have looked
like something built to colonize Mars.
Video: The F-Word
A dad struggles to give an age-appropriate explanation of the expletive.
Donna Spruijt-Metz: Person
I wouldn’t call you back—not
to a body that would be unable
to walk the mountains freely. Even though I miss you—
even though the hole you left in me is vast—please—
trust me.
Jan Beatty: My Father’s Houses
My father stands lean and young
in the formica kitchen, drinking a shot of Imperial.
He shoots his head back/swallows it all/
slams down the shot glass/turns around and says:
That’s good stuff.
Michael Simms: Jude the Obscure, Forgiveness
I wish Lea could see this light
lowering itself gently into the arms
of the Aphrodite sweet shrub
and tangling itself in the thorns
of Jude the Obscure named for
the many petals of our sins against others.
Desne A. Crossley: Something I Came Across
Yesterday, I was culling through papers to throw out and came across a letter from my mother to her father. She’s trying to cushion the news that no one will tell him. He’s dying of cancer.
Ma Yongbo: Father’s Little Boat (English and Chinese)
She sits beside him all night,
watching the Father’s darkness,
listening to the careful breath of the dark,
listening to the broken winds of another world.
Meg Kearney (Two Poems)
When he was dying my little brother
said cancer was “the sins of our mother”
visited upon him. What’s also true:
her heart was the stone rolled away from the tomb.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: About My Birthday
when the last leaves let go, let go,
have all let go, & it’s almost winter again —
don’t remember my birthday
