Daddy's Girl
When the radio played
And you thought you could win me
with a handwritten note declaring your pain
in my absence and with hubris
of your youth, you told me of the softness of my mouth, you knew it,
to be gained by forceful lips, again, of youth
that lived on beyond its time
Because your daddy slept on the couch and your momma
never asked for anything and you never knew
there were things a woman could want
So you pushed for me, and stood in the yard
as summer’s light dimmed evening after evening
And I believed that summer would never end,
that desire would never end
I knew a woman should want, my daddy
brought home sweet peonies that grew beside the dairy barn
and leaned down to kiss my momma at the kitchen table
and touched the top of my head
But your face, flinty, shadowed, was like a dare
for something in the end that would pierce me
with a dangerous pleasure and so I prepared.
When I was ready for you
you had found her, the one whose daddy
had left home altogether.
Copyright © Amy Vale | Year Posted 2017
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