Her Child’s Father
Beauty is not my father
No certainty in the mirror
But dust and old age and the
Barking you’d only imagine -
A mad dog’s cage
Beating in a rage
Beneath his puffed-up chest.
No, beauty is not my father.
He harbors too many grudges -
Grimes and gripings beneath his docked eyelids
His sleep is no calm bay in the night
But the raging storm with all of the slight
The vengeances coiled
In ropes to his boats
He’ll never let go
Never let slow the tides, the wide berths of waves
The cries of his better days
Beyond the brink of blue crests - he lays
His dreams too far for his body to sway
No, beauty is not my father.
If I ever was him, I’d be hurricanes at seas
And I’d drown in salty tears
He keeps close to himself
But I know and I know
And it shatters my home.
No, beauty is not my father,
There is ironing, there is hope
There is tidying tasks to cope
There is love
Steep, steep love
At ridges, slid deep into the crevice-sleep love
So far in the beneath
So far, it’s out of reach.
If beauty was ever remotely attainable
As if it could be contained by the oceans -
What raindrop to hit my eye and blind me
With it’s perfect slay -
No…no beauty. My father is beyond the away.