Father, with a Touch of Hood

Father, with a Touch of Hood

One: Yesterday

I am at the 5 & Diner on Colter and 16th Street/Finishing a scoop of ice cream/Which followed an omelette made with shaved steak, peppers, onions/And two kinds of cheese.

It is my slightly naughty (being diabetic) Father’s Day gift to myself.

The two women who made me a father thirty-five years, two months, and one week ago/Live together with a floating population of cats/In the house I once shared with them.

They want to have nothing to do with me, indefinitely/And I have been respecting their wishes.

It has been this way for more than four years.

It hurts less and less as time goes on/But Father’s Day amps up the gaping ache.

Life goes on.

.

Two: Today

It’s my day off. I think, as I have many times/Of writing a letter to Kate/And reminding her/That we have had hundreds of good times together/And that we both love the movies, and Hawaiian and Mongolian barbecue,

And asserting that the explosive argument that started our estrangement/Began with a misunderstanding,

And asking her forgiveness for my crimes against the family,/Including me never ever attending a PTO meeting/When she was a student,/And gambling away a chunk of what should have been family money,

And I would ask consideration for the hours I spent teaching her to read and to count and to write her name (that one took two weeks)/So that she could apply for and obtain a library card at age 3…

But the fire sparked by my real need/To be a father to my daughter again/Flickers and dies with the realization/That after four years the voltage is still sky-high/And what I want is not the issue at stake,

And her specific request at last writing was “please let me go” even though “I know this makes you very sad.”

Even bringing this out in the open/Makes me feel like a hoodlum,

A Father, with a touch of Hood.