my father died
And I fell in love with the child everyone
thought I was
stern and playful / addicted
to grapes and language and halfway
between saved and devastated I spotted a sign for sainthood,
said it'll just take one more miracle
to become a saint, I
tried to show my mother but she couldn't see it and wondered if I wasn't
standing in the way of my own miracle like the petty
thief the cops finally chase down just to say
good work this is how
tv discovers the black man
and turns him to sambo and back
The last time I felt this candid
I was fucking my enemy and pretending
to like it
You wouldn't believe the way the truth teaches me to write
fiction
Like Capote or Baldwin, in cold blood and pinstripes
my real fantasies finally visible enough to transcend or at least transfer— traded with the ease of nightmares for a title I can fear in daylight
mistress or situationist, this skill for getting in the middle called
soul
lies to itself about the value of otherwise
This time, the mirror in my mind is a character
up there playing the drums a crying.
When you clap he hides behind the cymbals
in a fur coat and dark shades,
when you moan he gets paid
to moan in reverse
and his gritty laughter is the politics of the future
the kind of nurturing abuse our fathers' names go numb to master
the kind so close to love it shudders like a broken door waiting to be knocked shut
