by Thomas Sayers Ellis

    My father was an enormous man

    Who believed kindness and lack of size

    Were nothing more than sissified

    Signs of weakness. Narrow-minded，

    His eyes were the worst kind

    Of jury — deliberate， distant， hard.

    No one could out-shout him

    Or make bigger fists. The few

    Who tried got taken for bad，

    Beat down， their bodies slammed.

    I wanted to be just like him：

    Big man， man of the house， king.

    A plagiarist， hitting the things he hit，

    I learned to use my hands watching him

    Use his， pretending to slap mother

    When he slapped mother.

    He was sick. A diabetic slept

    Like a silent vowel inside his well-built，

    Muscular， dark body. Hard as all that

    With similar weaknesses

    — I discovered writing，

    How words are parts of speech

    With beats and breaths of their own.

    Interjections like flams. Wham！ Bam！

    An heir to the rhythm

    And tension beneath the beatings，

    My first attempts were filled with noise，

    Wild solos， violent uncontrollable blows.

    The page tightened like a drum

    Resisting the clockwise twisting

    Of a handheld chrome key，

    The noisy banging and tuning of growth