Honor Thy Father is a Punchline
It don't hurt.
—Johnny Thunders, lead guitarist of The Dolls, last words
My ancestors are made of malt and barley,
barely a drop of water left—
Midas in jorts and Nikes,
overplaying hands, turning miracles
into Milwaukee's Best.
I call it Bacchanal; they call it survival—
hedonistic sounds more literary
than alcoholic.
A heritage of rootless feet, ten men’s teeth
between twenty, all rotted. They were proud
of the wrong things. My father says
he could take a punch. I know better—
the arc of his arm, the twist of his knuckles.
I know he can throw one. I know
how to mold frozen peas to a blue eye,
how to save his day with this phrase:
It don’t hurt.
The confidence it took
to laugh with Huber Heights police—
****-talking mouthy kids like me,
while I brokered backyard deals,
babysat for safety, blowjobs as currency—
a language the dads understood.
Only way to get them to call 9-1-1,
report another pillar of their community,
when they heard my screams.
My tongue burns
with things I haven’t even said—
about fathers and fists, the slow murder
of tenderness. Just a pinch of it
could’ve saved one of us, maybe both—
at least given me a shot at rewriting this,
revising my father’s memory,
sloshing in my gut,
heavy as the blood-soaked prostate
of that long-gone man.
You can’t protect yourself
from this kind of inheritance,
same booze, different brand.
But I’m a woman with the gift of language
bad-lipping the devil who brought me to this dance—
still here, gaining muscle in my tongue,
writing my way out of this silence,
spilling ink like piss on a grave,
acting it like it matters—
I’m finally the one laughing, hoping
this page outlasts that mother****er’s legacy.
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