I Have You in My Bones

June 14, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is fatherhood, in honor of Father’s Day, which falls on June 19.

Today’s poem is a Father’s Day poem from a child who was abandoned by his father.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I have you in my bones, the way I laugh,

The way I shrug, a moodiness that gathers

When I don't get my way. You are half

Of me, and yet I've never met you. It matters,

Oh, yes, it matters. You are in my smile,

The way I whistle when I'm happy, a certain

Skip up the stairs, a jaunty sense of style,

Off-kilter, off-key. I peer around the curtain

Of your abandonment and wonder: What

If you had stayed, had loved me, had loved my mother?

And what does it say of me that you would put

Yourself so first? Is that also me? What other

Ugliness have I from you? Or grace?

They say I am the mirror of your face.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ihavey.html. For more Father’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Fatherhood.

June 13: Children Need a Daddy

June 14: I Have You in My Bones