by Samantha Lê

Morning in History Park where you 
     once walked
upright, smelling of suspicions.
Chalk-dust moustache. Wooden desk
imprints on left elbow patch.

Poet Father, where have you been?

Your face floats above the scavenging 
      crowd.
We, violent baby birds, peck at ourselves,
seeking refuge on the ground. The sky, 
     a blank sheet.

(Loneliness was in the falling.)

At the podium, you sprout beak 
     without heart.
Smoky breaths; velvet tongue.

Face chapped
with unwritten lines. Desperate
for love, you chase away the audience, 
     blurring

lives with the stories you tell.

Black ink pen leaks
black words inside shadowy pockets, 
     scratches
out squawks of heartbreaks.

___

First published in The Lullwater Review (Emory University), Atlanta, GA, Vol. XXVI, Winter 2018, pp. 23.