Your Obsession

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Your obsession with your father
Gave you good material, I must say.
All that poetry, I mean. I envy you that.
Always having interesting subject matter.
You've made hay of it, and every poem was good!

It's odd how twisted you got, just thinking
About how powerful he was when you were little—
How intelligent he was, how all-encompassing!
I wonder how it was I never felt him like that,
Never felt him turn his finely focused heat ray on me?

Did I just not draw his fire
Or was I fireproof in some way?
Was I insensate and could not apprehend
That fire and heat despite it being there?
I guess it was only of a certain kind—
Familial, insidious, insinuating,
Not quite for public consumption.

It is strange, isn't it, how, among three offspring,
It was the girl in the middle, not the boys,
who most emulated him?
Perhaps they knew something about him
That you never absorbed?
Was it just that their fascination was less?
Was there something to avoid,
And they required a greater distance
Than Adoration could allow?

Boys don't care much for Adoration,
Unless they're the ones getting it—
But that's neither here nor there.
Or is it?

rcs.


3rd draft: 06/01/04
©2003 Ronald C. Southern

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