by Edwin Bodney
Before the depression / my father and I were fine / we talked / we laughed / we shared / the invisible thread of a lost child tugging his way home /
A year ago / we were wound so tight within / our own flood / an entire room said drown /
and each body became a raft /
I had never
been told
I love you and
heard You are
safe
My father drives trucks / lives an entire life inside a highway / cinches the waist of a whole country / does not bring us closer /
I haven’t heard my father’s voice in months / I haven’t seen him in, well / longer than that / my father is driving, I imagine /
I am a
satellite / I am
artificial /
asked to
follow what I
cannot feel
Last week / a woman who claims to have a child by my father sent me an email / their daughter wants to meet me / she’s eight / I retain and ignore all of it
How does a body pass slow / full and carried by celestial ovation /
How do you produce a new moon / gape your mouth as if you’ve never seen light?
Somewhere / in the cinched waist of a country / my father’s diseased heart might deny its solar charge / might explode into a light so warm it feels like a final home
I will watch from a rooftop / my arm will not reach long enough to pull him back /
I may
be the
last to
know
Edwin Bodney is an L.A. native and co-host of one of the largest poetry venues in the nation, Da Poetry Lounge. A nationally recognized poet, he has performed his work for an array of organizations like USC, UCLA, Lexus, TV1, All Def Digital, and Button Poetry. In 2016, he officially published his first book titled A Study of Hands with Not a Cult Press. Through his work, both on stage and in classrooms facilitating workshops, he hopes to transform his community in such a way that no one forgets their joy in the midst of all their healing.