My own not quite father

Has been the same man for three decades

Even after ‘we both shall live’

But I used to explain the mistake

When people told me how alike we looked

Since even though it might have been so

In some parallel universe, in this one,

His wasn’t the face my mother saw first

 

I assumed people were unobservant

My color, far darker than his or my mother’s

My shape, too like hers to imagine any of him in it

Even our names, if truly heard,

Could clearly have revealed our not hidden un-secret

Too lazy was my verdict

They failed to think of seeing

What was clearly in our faces

 

Now I have my own not quite son

Who will be the same

Long after ‘we both shall live’

Regarding us, no one would make the same mistake

Enabled by laziness and being a not quite son

For more than three decades

Somehow though, I’m not bothered anymore

Since fathers are more than faces

 

 

© Gayle Force Press 2008

 

• Poetry