Father’s embrace
E. Fleischman
My feet are on the air
releasing weight into the arms of man.
When my white family was together,
we drove our car into the night of America,
which gives a need to explain, at least, where we are going;
even if there was no other reason but the going.
And in each night of this country, my father held me
with my eyes in his shoulder, asleep to his thoughts.
Now look: my grown man’s body is held up off the ground by strong arms:
to you, i sleep: see my eyes close, my feet in air.
To be held like this supplies the explanation that we are men.
Nothing more.
Whatever reasons you and i had for coming to where we are,
we are two men who have been lifted by the arms of men and women
into the kind sleep of equal hands.
I am lucky to be able to remember warmth in my father’s embrace.
