Origin Story: The Father

The Father bought a pair of Oxfords—

cream-colored, copper heels beaming

like pennies—& kept them in a box in his car.

& The Father would cart the box from his car

to The Street.

& The Street watched. & the ladies on the porch

shucking pole beans from they stems watched.

& the wind, once dragged through the gray tops

of the houses, stuttered then stopped.

& The Father, hot, walked the watching

Street with a shoebox in his arms.

——

The Father knocked at The First House,

& at The First House was Grace.

But Grace didn’t like shoes

in the house—the scuff & creak

on the hard floors, she lived quiet,

spooned soup but never touched

the bowl. Mopped but wouldn’t hum sweet

serenades to the suds—even with

a husband not home. Grace swore

silence was survival. Watched

mice scurry the crawlspace as a girl.

Noticed, only, the squeaking ones

cogged in the moist machinery

of the tomcat’s mouth.

When Grace saw The Father at her door,

necktie noosed around the milky giblets

of his sun-blushed neck, she refused to open,

not even enough for the sun to tiptoe in.

& The Father, hot, walked the watching

Street with a shoebox in his arms.

——

The Father knocked at The Next House,

& at The Next House was Joy.

Joy walked in midnight

& the moon followed. Joy whistled

from the breath of many men. Hips wide

as lampshades—Joy held her own light,

shined in the open door while her kids lapped

the living room, laughs rattling its ragged rails.

& The Father said, Good evenin’.

& Joy regarded him with the confidence of women

taught to be fruit

on a high branch, & The Father blanched,

fumbled with the box topped in his arms.

Asked, can I sell you some shoes?

& Joy said, Nahsir, & her voice jangled

like a pocketbook full of Susan Bs,

capital in her honey jar, saved herself

bread for her own garden to tend—

& The Father, hot, walked the watching

Street with a shoebox in his arms.

——

The Father knocked at The Last House,

& at The Last House was Love.

Love, too, was beautiful, even when summer scuttled

over her like a winched field of rye.

Love ushered The Father inside, poured him coffee

& a clap of cream in the tapered mug he liked.

Love didn’t mind. The Father didn’t sell shoes—not really.

This was 1930—before The Father was allowed

to hold Love like a thrasher in his snow-banked

palms. But how he longed to hold her—GOD

rustled in her skirts & he had to know

what heaven looked like, had to kiss

the open vase of her brown lips, the gospel budding

between them, & when she spoke his name

The Father felt divine, like the power he held

was his the whole time—

& together Father & Love brought forth creatures

in their likeness, called one Daughter,

took the Oxfords

from the box & left them for her. GOD plucked

a hangnail from his thumb.

& The Daughter, in her hard shoes, watched

her Father leave with a shoebox in his arms.