Today I will not contemplate my father’s
mortality. Kendrick croons through my
earbuds, I solid promise beneath a
heartbeat drum, We gon’ be alright.

All my life I had to fight—

and in every life my father has been
a soldier; a psychic once told him
he had defended Rome in battle,
and though I don’t believe
in past lives, I wonder how many
empires have failed him.

My rights, my wrongs, I write
till I’m right with God

and my father hides
in every line of my poems;
and how much we have had to forgive;
and how many photographs have gone
untaken, left in closets in houses
oceans away; it’s all too much to bear

so maybe I should pray, but I grow
weary of asking for this fear
to be taken from me, so I let Kendrick sing

Do you hear me? Do you feel me?
We gon’ be alright

and in the years to come
maybe I will come to believe it
for now all that can be done
is to press replay