with Clarence Carter onin the background

& there I sit, in my mother’s white PlymouthStolen in the open, under advisement ofThis country’s laws & customs—I wait beneathThe Hollywood Video’s fanatic purple lights—Their appliance buzz, sound of the spectral past,Crackling in & out—I waitFor my mother to return, to go backTo the only home I’ve ever known—But insideShe’s been stunned-still at the sight of my father,Possibly a mirage—I must’ve beenAsking for him, begging, but she had no addressNo number to call—This moment, pure chance, a warpIn the spinning wax come back around—her mind skippingAs she stands before him with West Side Story in hand,Then speaks, finally, to tell him I am out in the car—& that night my father will tell his wife I exist& that night he’ll make it to my grandfather’s houseWith this declaration on his lips, he’ll try even againAfter being turned away for seven yearsBy a many-chambered gun—& this time when he arrives, somehowMy mother knows he is thereWaiting in the outer space air of October—This time a window is open & ash is fallingFrom his cigarette behind the barbecue pitWhere he crouches just as the nightmare curlsBack from my skin like smoke—This time my grandfather is unaware,Bound to his makeshift couch-bed by malignancy,When my mother pulls me through the cone of light castFrom his living room & toward my Black life—When we steal past the safeThat holds the revolver wrapped in a tea towel,My free fist turns like a wrenchIn my eye—& then the heavy oak doorWhispered open by the sparkle of my father’s knuckles& then my mother pushing me onto the night porch saying,“Your father, this is your father”—before me, a mirror—My horse mind flickers—When I step into him & look back at my mother, sheIs on the other side.