unlike every other poem i found you in
an unresolved sestina is a father
finally, the seasons switch they tempo. pollen brings us back to life
our lungs trippin on marigold and silt. children make angels in the dander + ain’t
nobody thinkin bout dyin yet. all this to say, I been
tryna find a way to tell my father his life wasn’t no
gospel, but saved me just the same. I mouth Langston’s last song into a crystal
vase, weep silently into my hands. I’m still waitin to bloom, right here on the 11th stair.
early June flexes her joints + I pass blood, avoid men who stare
at my lil chest from behind they wives fingers. womxn who dun soiled whole lives
of possibility, tryna polish a dagger of a husband into love. crystalline
shards live where glory once did, in they fingers. I kno that story. it’s my mother’s. I ain’t
lyin— I was young then. a gxrl-child as green + fertile as the ends of dandelions. no,
I wasn’t holy. my father scolded me into the leather at his waist, said shouda been
memorized the blues, maybe that woulda closed ya legs. I’m bein
hyperbolic, of course. he began this a ritual to shame the honeysuckle outta me. used a stair
well to slip one generation’s horror into the next, almost magic. made us chew psalms for supper. I kno
the way it sound. a grown ass man, forcin his daughter’s mouth round a live
thing, a sorrow too old for her young body. this ain’t
that, I swear. this is me paintin a mural of my father from memory. tryna keep it all crystal
clear. his life depend on it. I love a man I’on truly understand, understand? I crystallize
him in black + half-truths. try to write his palm flatter than it was + who that benefit
most? here’s the truth: I hate you for what you did to my mother + what you ain’t
do for me. I love you for pullin oyster knives out your bones, sterilizin
them for me to make use of later. you stirred red clay + a dark bruise into some kinda life
+ I tell myself it was all for posterity. here’s truth: I lie + say this for me, but we both know
I’m tryna tell you somethin I can’t reach, no
matter how many poems I write. each time the sun crystals
across your hands on the southwest side—docile + brewin coffee, I weep. what a life
you’ve pulled from the hip of mud. once it was ash, then a ghost, now sage. you been
the altar + the witching hour. you’ve tossed my mother down stair
ways clear ’cross the county. once my mouth bled for three days on the hem of your fears + ain’t
it funny? I wouldn’t know you now. do I call that growth or anti-climactic? I ain’t
afraid to say I’m afraid to love you. I ask God to shed light on the matter + She gon say no
matter what you forgive, how you gon resolve it to the bone + what is prayer but a failure to stand, anyway? I stare
back at the fingers of my father, decide to wipe them clean. drench them in honeydew + laugh
grief pools like a wound that yields no
blood + a father is a sinner or a 2008 Chrysler
+ a father is a suture or saving no one’s life
+ I finish the work without knowin
that this ain’t
how it ends + the poem chisels my hand into a windin staircase
Aurielle Marie (they/she) (@YesAurielle) is a Black, Atlanta-born, Queer poet, essayist, and social strategist. They’ve received invitations to fellowships from Tin House, The Watering Hole, Pink Door, and served as the 2019 Writer-in-Residence for Lambda Literary. Aurielle’s essays and poems have been featured in or are forthcoming from The Guardian, TriQuarterly, Adroit Journal, Teen Vogue, BOAAT Magazine, Essence, and many other platforms. Her poetry debut, Gumbo Ya Ya, won the 2020 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from the University of Pittsburgh Press in the Fall of 2021.