The Fidelity of Music
- The Fidelity of Music
It took time and travel to understandhow the word father sings to me in alllanguages—I want daddy, but father-abuser crossesthe notes or keys I believe have barricadedthe badness of that man. I hear father-addictin the damn silence. Of course, my whole-
hearted hope had no chance, which I shouldhave known once I learned guitar—the first instrumentI tried to turn against him: strummed father-liar,plucked father-thief. But for each piece of musicI make into a door for daddy’s returnfather-deserter has orchestrated, without warning,
another empty house of Blues. Do you hearwhat it means for me to sing my son to sleep? [End Page 735]
geffrey davis is the author of Revising the Storm, winner of the A. Poulin, Jr., Poetry prize and a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist. He also coauthored, with poet F. Douglas Brown, Begotten, a chapbook. His honors include fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation and Vermont Studio Center, the Anne Halley Poetry Prize, the Dogwood Prize in Poetry, the Wabash Prize for Poetry, and the Leonard Steinberg Memorial/Academy of American Poets Prize. Davis teaches at the University of Arkansas.
