Tutelary
By Michael Ryan
What a fuckup you are.
What dumbshit you do.
Your father's voice
still whispers in you,
despite the joys
that sweeten each day.
Your Genius it isn't
until, dying away,
it worms back through
the sparkling dream
where you drown him
in an inch-deep stream:
your knee in his back,
your strength on his skull,
it begins singing
praise for your skill.
Copyright Credit: Michael Ryan, “Tutelary” from New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2004 by Michael Ryan. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Source: Poetry (April 2004)