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Stealing Honor
Dad combs his hair to the right
always
just above the ears and knows
this comfort in a dry-cleaned, starched good-morning
and a chap-stick, aftershave goodnight kiss.
And it was never just love when he gift-wrapped his laugh
for me under each Christmas's best-tree-ever
for Jesus or guilt's birth.
I swallowed his voice as reason
on a backbone
where moderation as his key ran circles
around my head, cracking doors open for oxygen's sake
before I slammed them shut,
some on purpose, the rest from momentum
or habit or
being right in brain
left in movement
right in hand
wrong in female
left me feeling most of the time absent
before he built the pedestal under me, spot-lit
before I unscrewed the bulb myself-
his back turned to me-quiet and quick
I don't know if he noticed the lack until I told him.
I will never know to know his
mistakes even though
I see them sometimes and I can hide there
sleep there cry there because he won't.
Once I stole his right and he was upset
and he was loud but not in his laugh
so I gave it back the next morning
on a Book-bending apology
but kept a piece of it still
because Dad got his from guilt.
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