Down a graveled street of rail track
\nand road on each hemisphere,
\nI saw his dark figure.
\nI was nowhere to begin in the world
\nbut here, seeing my father return
\non his bicycle
\ncovered with the smell of a factory.
\nHis black lunchbox rattling like nails
\nin a can.
\nHis gruff kiss on my cheek
\nas I pulled at the box
\nwith its sandwich saved for me
\nand my twin, cooked egg or baloney.<\/p>\n
All my life I would reach for food
\nlike this,
\nand one day in a dream of bread and fruit
\nsaw the rough life of my father
\nand its taste
\nacross a table of privilege
\nwhere the acrid sugar and fermentations
\nof labor had been removed.
\nIn those years of depression and poverty
\nmy mouth chewed the produce of love,
\nsaw the tincture of coal
\nin my father\u2019s hair, black and shiny.<\/p>\n
And I knew childhood was my chef,
\nthe tattered boards of our house
\nhis arms, music, poetry and wisdom,
\nthe legacy of hard scrapple schooling
\nthat ended in the blood of his murdered father
\nwhen he was ten
\nand was thrown into the servitude
\nof the factory,
\nreturning each day to us
\nwith a sandwich saved
\nto feed the innocence of his children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Down a graveled street of rail track and road on each hemisphere, I saw his dark figure. I was nowhere to begin in the world…<\/p>\n