Father Flowers after Father Weaver by Jamaica Baldwin

If he wasn't pharmacist, he'd be yarrow gardener, angry chemist, he'd longhaul

truck drive to sting & the police. He could have been online poker aficionado,

charcoal grill master, he'd turn his pockets out to crash amber 

shot glasses to the floor. Torpid porn voyeur, strident driving instructor,

merciful mother-strangler, he might have instead been hair braider of three

daughters, boo-boo kisser-in-chief, first at door of father 

daughter dance. His skill at the open road no match for family.

Hands that tenderly brush dirt off a wilted blossom tighten

around my wrists, leave blue-black dirt in their wake. 

If he had not been anger hungry, he might have planted gardens to rival

alice walker's mother's. I might have searched for them all: forsythia & iris

& cornflower & bluebell & black-eyed susan like black-eyed 

mother huddled shaking on the floor. If only I could have been a flower

in your garden. I'd drive & drive us around — school, daycare,

emergency room. I'd leave black dirt in my wake.