If one day
A man appeared
Held open his arms to say,
I’m your father
I would believe him
And follow him
Asking questions of his life, his absence
And the frigidity of my mother
I would use him
To cure my infections
Patrol my empty rooms
Patch my broken windows
Curve my straight lines
I would welcome him, bother him
Call him
At 2am for various glasses of water
And happy stories I would make sad
With mention of my absence
We would plot against his imposter of 37 years
Who never told the truth
Preferring instead to punish my mother
With insolvent and angry silence
I would cry out the story of the little red truck
That I scratched (perhaps by accident) with my bicycle
And how the imposter (I’ll call him Larry)
Pulled me
Ear first
Stumbling feet behind
From the living room to the dining room through the kitchen
Out the back door down the steps across the yard
And into the garage for my confession
My real father will touch my hair
No, he’ll stroke it
I will cry, even weep
The tears, the tears, the embarrassing tears
But no
Here ends the long history of my shame
Because I’m crying
To my dad, my daddy
My real and perfect daddy
Tomorrow we’re going to fly a kite and build a sandcastle taller than me
I’ll pretend I like baseball
No, I’ll tell the truth
My daddy
Will hate it too
We’ll scalp the tickets and go
Arms locked
Laughing
All the way to the circus
A professor of English and pedagogy, Salma Ruth Bratt is a second-generation American with an interest in the literature and linguistics of immigrants. She loves her sweet and thoughtful family, traveling abroad, passionate readers and writers, the theater of complex and interesting playwrights, the music of good listeners. Her work is often completed in collaboration with Moulay Youness Elbousty, for whom she is exceedingly grateful.
