Trash, and: Owed to Your Father's Gold Chain

Trash

All the men I loved were dead-beats by birthright or so the legend

went. The ledger said threeout of every four of us was

destined for a cell or leadshells flitting like comets

through our heads. As a boy,my mother made me write

& sign contracts to expressthe worthlessness of a man's

word. Just like your father,she said, whenever I would lie

or otherwise warp the historicalrecord to get my way. Even then,

I knew the link between me& the old man was pure

negation, bad habits, some awfulhyphen filled with blood.

I have half my father's face& not a measure of his flair

for the dramatic. Never oncehave I prayed & had another man's wife

wail in return. Both burden & blessing alike,it seemed, this beauty he carried

like a dead doe. No one called himFather of the year. But come

winter time, he would wash & cocoabutter us until our curls shone like lodestone,

bodies wrapped in three layersof cloth just to keep December's iron

bite at bay. And who would have thoughtto thank him then? Or else turn

& expunge the record, given all we knownow of war & its unquantifiable cost,

the way living through everyonearound you dying kills

something elemental, ancient.At a certain point, it all comes back

to survival, is what I am saying.There are men he destroyed

to become this man. The humanbrain is a soft, gray cage.

He doesn't know what elsehe can do with his hands.

Owed to Your Father's Gold Chain

Since we are already on the topic,I casually mention that I think we shouldname the baby Ajax, & you laughso hard that both your shoulders shake

as you mouth an adamant no,your arms waving wild in frontof your face like some noviceair traffic controller. You later explain

that this is not only quote unquotea terrible name but also that it makesyou think of innumerable Thursdaysspent cleaning bathrooms at your grandma's

house. And yes, I know, there must be a jokeabout class stratification in there somewhere,since the name Ajax also makes me thinkof that magical dust in the blue cardboard

box long before it does any ancientGreek demigod, but I tend to assumemy first thought is not my best thought,as you now know well. I often attribute

this fact to my sound colonial education,but am not yet sure what you would callor think of it. One might say that this,in fact, is a working definition for love

in a time of general disenchantment. The meticulousconsideration of all that slipped throughthe mind's wet meshwork before, minormiracles, like the number of bones in a human

hand. How yours unfastens like a memorywhen I request an impromptu waltzacross the bar's threshold & we circleone another, as if swordsmen, in the low light.

How the next week, you clasp your father's goldchain at the back of my neck, call me beautifulin your inside voice, barely breaking a whisper,as if you can't hear the dawn roaring

its way through the bedroom windowjust to catch a glimpse of us here,barely mortal, shimmering at the cuspof this strange & untamable world.