L'exemple de Mon Père

Mon papa is and was just one small paysant

in an Englishman's world.

He struggled with our language.

He struggled with our concepts in school.

He just wanted to master chess,

perfect sauces of paradise at home, and blackbelt in karate

with a cheap neighborhood instructor.

​

So he dropped out of parochial school at fourteen.

He worked.

He worked.

He worked, and

he eventually impressed "Pistol"

becoming Pete's own personal chef

at the height of Mr. Maravich's

New Orleans fame.

​

But life was never safe in the garden,

and my father lost friend

after friend. He lost brother after

brother, and then he left.

He moved north for career advancement.

​

Here, he would feed all his Pan-American

brothers and sisters

at the only Pan-American games

in Reagan's undisturbed

Scotch English North.

​

Then one night, a coworker, a brother,

met him in a dark parking lot

wanting to take my father's favorite Scotch English possessions

his porsche, his 'lex, and his late 80's car phone.

These were signs that he had made it, the signs he was no longer

un paysan comme son père plombier ivre.

​

It was someone he hired.

It was someone he knew.

It was someone he loved.

It was someone who reminded himself

of who he once was, at seventeen.

​

So mon papa, my strong kind papa, he attacked first in love.

He grabbed his brother by the wrist,

he twisted the knife from his attacker's hand,

and he told the young man to come back to work the next day

*sober*

as the sharp deadly blade

dulled on the cold icy blacktop beneath.

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