daddy’s singing

my daddy i was told he was used to sing to me cigarette tucked up his lip the whole damn tune the lowest notes all soaked with warm beer and spit him making like we won't say what that word meant. hey, he's no thief for getting it for free did it look like i didn't know what he was doing? like i maybe had some other smell in mind? something, how they crave what they despise and want to witness where he led my hand trust, my dear, it's how we touch the words. such aching in his strength as had to have then biting deep, the juice of me oozing out all sticky in my curly-headed dreams me holding to him tight until his breath left wondering if he too saw it flash just our little secret, him and me how risking just enough can make that sound. once he did me a ballad of his first lover how naked they had lay in her mother's garden and used a rose to mark each other's skin hold real still, he'd show me how it went this time maybe he would get it right at least i hadn't had no place to run aging me up while straining to grip his youth his disappointment showing like a welt but never letting on he gave a fuck. the ash tray by my bed would fill with butts the women he had over would so stare their mental calculations of all the hours made up for all the time i'd smoke alone and hum to myself, trying to sound like him. my daddy i was told he was, yeah right. he never could find words that need be said he sold his soul, that only bought him shit he'd come up with something good, then let it slide like his next pretty thing. and the next. and the next until it got so he just wouldn't let them linger long not the girls nor the words nor anything he felt but he never thought to stop. like a knife he knew it had to break the skin so it got to where his songs ran end to end the smoke hanging thick and blue above my bed and every silence waiting for his cough and every darkness aching for his love. he'd make like we both knew what that word meant it wasn't supposed to be much more than that: you say what you have to say what's left is what you use to make the song. my daddy i was told he was used to sing to me. that's how i sing: i come by it honestly.

malignancies