my father rung poetry up on his typewriter
typing me to what he wanted to be abstract
even fancied me as “son” when me and my girl screwed
while “husband” to the freshly laid seed;
roles would lose shape in love,
our maiden names, son, daughter, not so shapely out in the world
you’d long for a nickname, friend, lover, and hope it stuck; while
there’d always be home, to accommodate and name you
when your appellation stuck like bricks and clung around you like place
one was grateful for little assurances like “ie” and “ly,”
to make you more at ease with yourself: when
“little georgie” or “billy” came to you you’d just weep …
sagas accompanied anyone with pains
a name, merely your kind of wound; surely it hurt
to be spinach, carrot, or so many greens …