My Therapist Asks, "Is The Hunter in Your Dreams Your Father?"
       

The day you ask too many questions
is the day you lose your faith.
Such a fragile beast, faith.
When the stroke came
for my father, it was silent—
a thief coaxing open
a locked door, pushing back the security's trick of pins
until, at last, a click—
              I move & half my body turns to water.
              Something is wrong with me, kid.
His voice is the river lacing about my hooves.
It's summertime & early morning
dethrones the maggots feasting on rotting bark.
I turn away from the window
to find I'm in her office again.
The humidifier releases its lavender steam.
I don't remember the last time I prayed—
always craning heavenward, my knees salting the earth.
The forest pulls me back & I touch my hooves
to pine needles. I've grown weary of surrender
without anything to show for my obedience.
I lift my head to meet the hunter's darkest eye.
Safety is an illusion I've told myself so daylight would return.
When the stroke didn't overtake my father, I believed
it was a divine gift that if he was touched by death,
he would be returned to me as a field of red poppies.
The magnitude of my hope disgraces me.
The hunter cocks back his gun. Calls it fathering.
The sky gathering its rage. I know something about regret:
a father journeys to a new land
& never sees his mother's face again
until he has a daughter. The daughter kneels before him,
& his mother kneels inside him. His mother appears in dreams,
if only to hold his soft boy hand. His daughter
confronts his cowardice. He goes to war with his mother.
He goes to war with his shame. Shame's machinery buries
his mother every night. The animal of me bends,
believing she can't flee this time. All my selves bend.
I say to my therapist,
              I can believe my father loves me, but I'm not sure he
              ever wanted children.
              I can't tell if he is a father or a forgery.
When the moment came, I didn't hesitate to walk
into my father's eye. I make my own miracle & gallop
from the night. Sorrow, send your best flood.

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Copyright © 2022 I.S. Jones All rights reserved
from Spells of My Name
Newfound
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission