Is this why I left home and family
and came night after cold winter night
Minged and scraped, so I could
pay the teacher and the babysitter
ignored my daughter's wistful pleas
so that in the end I could
sit unnoticed in an audience
and hear "strong" and "earthy"
sentiments couched in non-alliterative
words, where every poem
seemed to mention "breast" or "squatting" or "spit" or "semen"
to make its bold imprint on the
listener.

Who will listen while I
reminisce, my reminiscences neither
"bold" nor "earthy"
Who will listen when I speak of
my father

My father, who wore the robes of a judge,
and shed his own gentle self
and covered his head with a black cap
when he pronounced the sentence of death

My father
He died after a three day fever
How easily he died,
He who struggled with his soul at each
sentencing
How easily he took his own

And when he died,
I thought, not of him, but of me
I thought, who will walk with me
now, in the morning,
Who will talk with me.
Who will declaim to me the words
of Shakespeare and Shelley
Who will talk with me
Only the everyday workaday clamor
awaits me now
How easily he died,
leaving me with

My mother
my stately imperial mother
whose gracious embrace I rarely
had to endure
Whose favorite word was not
'love' but 'dignity'

I never saw her spit or squat or scream
or beat upon the ground, but
always erect and stately, all steel and silk
and imperial grace.