The Daughter’s Pocket of Her Father’s Father

This memory is not gentle.

This memory is not my own.

It digs its nails in, refuses eviction.

I tell it to go and it laughs,

chews another groove into the cartilage of my ear.

It keeps coughing up my father’s father,

the belt swinging, the television buzzing,

My father shrinking to the size of a kitchen chair,

his tears salting the scalp

of a child not yet born.

I carry it like a rotten tooth you tongue at night

until the gums bruise,

a dog on a short lead, snarling at my ribs.

sometimes it hides in my tea,

the steam lifting his name straight into my lungs.

I was born decades later,

but the ghost learned to elbow through my mouth.

I had to father my father,

teach him gentleness like teaching a stray dog water.

Daughter, teacher, makeshift parent,

stitched into my pockets like someone else’s scar.

Sometimes this memory comes sideways

like a fridge light humming,

like a crack in the tiles,

like the word ‘Dad’ suddenly meaning

both shelter and earthquake.

This memory is a cruel archivist.

It misfiles the violence beside the lullabies.

It shows me a man I never met,

And still I can't unclench my teeth.

My father says sorry too much.

I tell him he doesn’t have to.

This memory that isn't my own

laughs in its rust-colored suit.

It will not let go,

so I make a bed for it.

I tuck it in at night.