If I could forget
my father's straining heart
and how pain clogs affection
in his aortic valve,
so emotions remain
hot and blue,
maybe I could forgive.

But my shirt is stained
with words that oozed
from his wounds
you stretched open.
Through the holes
I see memories:
of dusty porch steps,
of October outhouse trips
and floor mattresses
blanketed in children.

There's my father,
the dark one,
Negro,
lying on the end.
His stomach echoes
off the opposite wall.

Outside,
my nomadic grandmother
plucks ripe dandelion leaves
she will boil in fear
and feed to my father.

Soon light will force back his eyelids
and he will elevate
to spend his school day
picking lessons from trees,
saving them in a pouch,
hanging around his neck,
dumping them when he
can't hold the weight
anymore.

He won't complain
or cry.
He will learn to work so much
he'll make time for nothing else.
You gave him no other choice,
grand pa,
when you deserted them
for that white whore.

Now that I am grown
and my father finally
wants to talk to me
and I ignore him—
now that he is old
and he desperately
wants to talk to you
and you ignore him—

he may not hate you,
but I do.