CALL ME BELOVED

Yes! Yes – poems for all the unfit parents,
stanzas for the neglect and slant rhymes for
each time absent affection gets rebranded
as a lack of gratitude – yes, beatitudes for
each and every sob choked down better
than the meals I purged – yes, poems for
the poison inside me, I had to get rid of it –
yes, lines for the lies that bound me, better
than unravelling; maybe, maybe not – at least
the fiction was my making, frames for slants
to skew into a form that could align, justify
me neatly onto the page – yes, psalms for
the rage reduced to meager coals in my gut
too heavy to regurgitate – songs for bonfires,
for when those coals glow white-hot and you
burn and you burn and you burn and you burn
and if you have any voice left, then yes – hymns
for hope, the right words to invoke a glow of
ashen coals, to write the poems, break those lines,
prayers for enough time, but yes – always poems