What It Means to Inherit
       

The part of me who is my father
does not weep.

I dreamt that after dinner
I realized I had swallowed
my father's heart.

I catch myself looking at women
the way he did. I catch myself
lingering in the trance of hips
and thinking they are for me.

Before sleep, like my father,
I pull sadness into my bedroom
the way the butcher pulls in his awning
at closing time.

The June night my father died
I could see my own breath.

I am in the Ladies Room.
I am wetting my hair.
When I look at my reflection,
it is my father wetting his hair.
We are both in the wrong place.

Whatever longing I have,
I never call it that.

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Copyright © 2013 Stacey Waite All rights reserved
from Butch Geography
Tupelo Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission