The Night Angler
Dear Boy: Despite my return to running water
and migratory moods, I have spent your life
trying to break the feathered wheel of habit
in my voice, to bring you evidence
that I am done revising the seasons of storm—:
the God-cycles of hurt breath. There I go again . . .
***
Dear Boy: I played you the voicemails
my father left years ago and understood then
how my tongue will also travel, will mutate
to find you—will draw whatever blood
it takes to carry the word father to your feet.
***
Dear Boy: I witnessed the moment
your mother galvanized pain into a water-
way you ran to get here—: forget that
and forfeit the first promise pumped inside
your chest. Cut that and you might as well
spill a sudden bucket of your own blood.
Not a day has passed without the word woman
holding you in its mouth:—holy with movement.
***
Dear Boy: Let the record show we invented
one another: family—a lighted story
set against the shadow and dawn of distances.
When I am gone, hold and heat the vastness
of this creation—: Don't stop speaking to me.
***
Dear Boy: On the second message
my father is saying, I just had to
listen to your voice—haven't head you
in a while. And the tribe in his throat
trembles. How many gardens have I
abandoned to this grief?
—: For the Son so loved the worry
He gave His only begotten reality
and called the Father back.
***
Dear Boy: In the beginning
father was a fear I wanted
to call love. For years I waded
heart-deep into that doubt
for a version of my name
I could, with some forgiveness,
cast before your image.
Dear Boy: Here's my hand—
because your arrival has
mended the grave current
of time, in the beginning
I was talking to you.
Copyright Credit: Geffrey Davis, "The Night Angler" from Night Angler. Copyright © 2019 by Geffrey Davis. Reprinted by permission of BOA Editions, Ltd., www.boaeditions.org.
Source: Night Angler (BOA Editions, Ltd., www.boaeditions.org, 2019)