UNDISPUTED

I’m afraid of the dark
That’s when Daddy left
His dusty shoes in the foyer along with his favorite shirt
The wrinkled one soaked with mother’s tears
I managed to wash it with poetry
Mother says I need to stop dreaming
Daddy will never come back
He has no time now that he has 2 other boys to care for
I plan my escape with a backpack of goodies
Daddy’s shoes will take me to him
Take me to the place he chose as solace
Mother sleeps with books besides her
Counts pages of “I love you’s” like lottery tickets
No one will ever know how she stole those books
from my father’s side of the mattress
He was North of Haiti
She was South of Brooklyn
I found him in sunny Florida catching a tan with another woman
Mother swears the man I saw wasn’t my father
He is much lighter
More handsome in person
She identifies him as wasted fury of what could have been
Sniff his scent under her black dress
Obviously the wrinkled shirt cinched around her breasts
Is a reminder of his moonlight
The one he piled in Jacmel
Years before the slow-moving hurricane
I want this old man to come back
Retrace his steps to what he once knew as
home
©2008 by Cathy Delaleu
art by Karen Cougan