Life... a voyage in blood.
each day--a new chapter on a parchment of oiled skin wrapped around bone
	--The time you fell from a tree, an angel's flight to earth
	--The dog that bit your hand, a naive rabbit looking for friendship

My Father

My father wrote words.

My small fingers were too clumsy to make the symbols spill across the paper as my father’s did. His neat print with right angles mesmerized.

I had him write my words. Strange stories of dandelions with feet of roots to carry them. Their eyes staring through almond slits to find their way in a world never meant to be seen by them.

My father carried me in his arms.

He lifted me up like a pixie onto his shoulders. Little I at ages too young for schooling with straight dark brown hair that cascaded down to the middle of my back. Me with perfect miniature teeth to grin at him with and a shinny blue image of Mary swung from a silver chain about my neck.

My father read.

He read stories of other worlds--so strange wonders. I now read these same books. Volume and volumes of places I'd rather spend my days.

But when I was an elf he read fairy tales for my young ears.
A magician, a giant...

but somewhere all the stories ended.
	somewhere a child died--I?
			somewhere my father took up his coat
				somewhere he had his drugs
One day he lost his job
	One day he had his slut forge my mother's name
		One day he took it all away.
			One day I strode across the desert sand...
				my new home.

© 1998

 

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Asdzani Bah & her Pandora Box