Invention
If he could have, he would have
whispered my name like an old wish—
would have admitted
I am your father
I am a rage of teeth
I am absent but no marathon of deletions I am
your dancing foot’s “Why Ya Wanna Make Me Blue”
the heat from a hastiness of cooks
I am the distraction that is every father
(Maybe one day I’ll find him among
a rascal of boys — neither a man
nor a lad — but this day isn’t that day—)
If he can, he should reach out to me—
say my name like an old wish:
admit he acted like a knot of toads
a shell of electrons
a breakdown in his woman’s plans He should say
he can never tell me why or why or why not
Just that he was never a hum of hymns knows he
was never relevant in any of my lunar years was
a smokescreen & all-ways a plague of questions
Lynne Thompson is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Fretwork selected by Jane Hirshfield for the Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize. A multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, Thompson’s recent workappears or is forthcoming in December, Ninth Letter, New England Review, and Best American Poetry 2020.