Origin Story: The Father
The Father bought a pair of Oxfords—
cream-colored, copper heels beaming
like pennies—& kept them in a box in his car.
& The Father would cart the box from his car
to The Street.
& The Street watched. & the ladies on the porch
shucking pole beans from they stems watched.
& the wind, once dragged through the gray tops
of the houses, stuttered then stopped.
& The Father, hot, walked the watching
Street with a shoebox in his arms.
——
The Father knocked at The First House,
& at The First House was Grace.
But Grace didn’t like shoes
in the house—the scuff & creak
on the hard floors, she lived quiet,
spooned soup but never touched
the bowl. Mopped but wouldn’t hum sweet
serenades to the suds—even with
a husband not home. Grace swore
silence was survival. Watched
mice scurry the crawlspace as a girl.
Noticed, only, the squeaking ones
cogged in the moist machinery
of the tomcat’s mouth.
When Grace saw The Father at her door,
necktie noosed around the milky giblets
of his sun-blushed neck, she refused to open,
not even enough for the sun to tiptoe in.
& The Father, hot, walked the watching
Street with a shoebox in his arms.
——
The Father knocked at The Next House,
& at The Next House was Joy.
Joy walked in midnight
& the moon followed. Joy whistled
from the breath of many men. Hips wide
as lampshades—Joy held her own light,
shined in the open door while her kids lapped
the living room, laughs rattling its ragged rails.
& The Father said, Good evenin’.
& Joy regarded him with the confidence of women
taught to be fruit
on a high branch, & The Father blanched,
fumbled with the box topped in his arms.
Asked, can I sell you some shoes?
& Joy said, Nahsir, & her voice jangled
like a pocketbook full of Susan Bs,
capital in her honey jar, saved herself
bread for her own garden to tend—
& The Father, hot, walked the watching
Street with a shoebox in his arms.
——
The Father knocked at The Last House,
& at The Last House was Love.
Love, too, was beautiful, even when summer scuttled
over her like a winched field of rye.
Love ushered The Father inside, poured him coffee
& a clap of cream in the tapered mug he liked.
Love didn’t mind. The Father didn’t sell shoes—not really.
This was 1930—before The Father was allowed
to hold Love like a thrasher in his snow-banked
palms. But how he longed to hold her—GOD
rustled in her skirts & he had to know
what heaven looked like, had to kiss
the open vase of her brown lips, the gospel budding
between them, & when she spoke his name
The Father felt divine, like the power he held
was his the whole time—
& together Father & Love brought forth creatures
in their likeness, called one Daughter,
took the Oxfords
from the box & left them for her. GOD plucked
a hangnail from his thumb.
& The Daughter, in her hard shoes, watched
her Father leave with a shoebox in his arms.
