Misty Dawn

You presumed to call me by my middle name,

perhaps a sentiment of hope for your sullied child.

Though disenchanted as we grow to be

and I disinherited from your heart,

the resenter’s gifts spewed forth,

begrudging the sweaty brow its peace

to clothe its foreign descendant and send it to college.

I forget that face I know too well

to my childhood repressions,

inventing instead a benefactor so grand,

in stature alike to passionate reasoning,

to ensure my peace of forgiveness and self-acceptance

and not your ever fresh presentiments

of paranoia or paralegal,

ignoring your paraplegic grip on reality.

Instead, your frame becomes donned in

dirty jeans and stained T-shirt.

With wild dark flowing hair sweeping your temples

you become the shadow father

with a place, not an absence.

You write letters into my memories

calling forth that lost child’s potential,

Flowing the mists

I answer to the rising brightness within.

My imagination of you

has made my name.