Tonsure
By Kevin Young
Forever you find
your father
in other faces—
a balding head
or beard enough
to send you following
for blocks after
to make sure
you’re wrong, or buying
some stranger a beer
to share. Well, not
just one—and here,
among a world that mends
only the large things,
let the shadow grow
upon your face
till you feel
at home. It’s all
yours, this father
you make
each day, the one
you became when yours
got yanked away.
Take your place between
the men bowed
at the bar, the beer
warming, glowing faint
as a heart: lit
from within & just
a hint bitter.
Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2020 by Kevin Young, “Tonsure”, from Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 2020. Forthcoming in Stones (Alfred A. Knopf, 2021.) Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher.