My father is waiting at the station
and I call him
Daddy
for the first time
since Ma died,
and we walk home,
together,
talking.
I tell him about getting out of the dust
and how I can’t get out of something
that’s inside me.
I tell him he is like the sod,
and I am like the wheat,
and I can’t grow everywhere,
but I can grow here,
with a little rain,
with a little care,
with a little luck.
And I tell him how scared I am about those spots on
his skin
and I see he’s scared too.
“I can’t be my own mother,” I tell him,
“and I can’t be my own father
and if you’re both going to leave me,
well,
what am I supposed to do?”
he promises to call Doc Rice.
He says the pond is done.
We can swim in it once it fills,
and he’ll stock it with fish too,
catfish, that I can go out and
catch of an evening
and fry up.
He says I can even plant flowers,
if I want.
As we walk together,
side by side,
in the swell of dust,
I am forgiving him, step by step,
for the pail of kerosene.
As we walk together,
side by side,
in the sole-deep dust,
I am forgiving myself
for all the rest.
August 1935