I met my father's death in the principal's office.
It held me in a solemn hug.
It wasn't his aged seed that sprung into cranberry wallflower
but I'd called him daddy so long, great uncle was like an insult.

My last time really seeing him was through alabaster haze of adolescent rage,
standing ankle deep in spilled comic books and shattered pride.
His gaunt, cancer-riddled arm sprung faster than a cobra and grabbed mine,
plenty of strength in it that last day,
and he glared at me with anger thirteen years had never seen,
hidden behind motherlove of his late wife,
"I hate you" rebounding inside my skull.

Next morning before school,
with $1000 in comics neatly alphabetized and stacked in closet corner,
I stepped into his bedroom like I was afraid the floor would shatter,
gazed at him, covers over his still silhouette,
left the same way I entered.
He never even stirred.

Nine years later, I stood on this cramped stage
with three months worth of thinking in my hand
as a scruffy redbone brother sharing arteries with my father
told me my poetry's not art, it's bullshit.
Those spilled comics suddenly appeared around the room.
Alabaster rage rose in my eyes again,
liquid papered the world into a silver ripple.
Icewater, pumping through veins of corrugated disappointment
boiled behind my glasses as I could swear I felt my arm in that skeletal grip.

I bled that fury on paper, those fingers still squeezing my right mind.
Stood down wizened elder and poet with everything I never said to my father,
read him the riot act of 1987 in 1996,
purged myself of venom collected in corners of my soul like radioactive cobwebs,
trapping all the good I could have been ...

Two weeks ago I hugged Peter J. Harris.
More like me and the late, beloved Harold Grant than I have the bravery to admit.
Listened to man who rivaled Chuck D and Marcus Garvey as an influence,
with attention I never gave my daddy,
said "yes sir," when he was done talkin.'

It's funny, I can remember every word Harold Grant ever said to me now,
from "you can only tell a woman so much truth,"
to "it ain't wrong 'till I catch you, boy."
When he was standing next to me, a man I swore could answer any question,
one who read my schoolbooks every night while I slept,
I couldn't even tell you when he was talking.

I hear you now, daddy. I hear you forgiving me.