Trash

All the men I loved were dead
-beats by birthright or so the legend

went. The ledger said three
out of every four of us was

destined for a cell or lead
shells flitting like comets

through our heads. As a boy,
my mother made me write

& sign contracts to express
the worthlessness of a man's

word. Just like your father,
she said, whenever I would lie

or otherwise warp the historical
record to get my way. Even then,

I knew the link between me
& the old man was pure

negation, bad habits, some awful
hyphen filled with blood.

I have half my father's face
& not a measure of his flair

for the dramatic. Never once
have I prayed & had another man's wife

wail in return. Both burden & blessing alike,
it seemed, this beauty he carried

like a dead doe. No one called him
Father of the year. But come

winter time, he would wash & cocoa
butter us until our curls shone like lodestone,

bodies wrapped in three layers
of cloth just to keep December's iron

bite at bay. And who would have thought
to thank him then? Or else turn

& expunge the record, given all we know
now of war & its unquantifiable cost,

the way living through everyone
around you dying kills

something elemental, ancient.
At a certain point, it all comes back

to survival, is what I am saying.
There are men he destroyed

to become this man. The human
brain is a soft, gray cage.

He doesn't know what else
he can do with his hands.