My father’s frame is observed knees upwards
in this memory, I am three or four or five
whatever I am leans back to catch his smile
bottom of a mountain to the top
Just high enough to hug his knee
His entire body the whole earth
I crawl over
collapse into
Sizing the seed of my palm into the fruit of his
Even my feet- a subset of his own
I have heard the same about my smile
They say this as though it is borrowed
He must have cut pieces of himself to make me
Someone to match the strength he wields
He looks at me like a fading sunrise
Seeing the unfinished
Like God was just one painter’s stroke shy of a masterpiece
Like he knows in his bones
everything would have been as it should
if our genitals matched.
Share this post