A fatherDrives into his son’s life
And when he pulls away
That son is bleeding
In a ditch
A master of violence
Need not raise a hand
To draw blood.
Like a flesh eating virus
It is a million tiny things
That might invade a baby’s fragile immunity.
Sometimes
The after-effect of the father is delayed.
From uncharacteristic exhaustion,
A little boy slips into a warm sleep.
Then come the nightmares.
Then the fracture.
He wakes a year later from a coma
In an abandoned hospital room
Filled with garbage and cobwebs.
Emaciated, malnourished,
Covered in layers of dead skin,
He is now patient and detective
Caught in a mystery of lost time.
A father’s every word
Is a salve, an anti-toxin, a secret remedy...or a poison.
The same can be said about his gaze and choice of reaction.
Such immense and undue power is a heavy load for him to bear.
But once a man has so stupidly
Entered a woman without forethought
This albatross will be his punishment and his children's suffering
For a lifetime.
Amazing how a second of ecstasy
Is secretly married to
The black king of all disasters.
A father
Walks into his son’s life,
Kicks him in the groin,
Cries for the effort it took to lift his leg
And leaves him on the sidewalk:
Howling, tears streaming down his cheeks, gasping for breath.
