by Ace Howlen
my father & his father—neither eloquent men—
waltz around words they do not like.
For example, when giving advice
on coming out to my grandfather:
I’m sure he’s not prepared to hear that you’re pregnant,
but somehow I get the feeling that is far from the case.
I am the only one of my father’s three children
who still manages to remain in contact.
I came out to my father in a text and he knew,
had more to say about telling my grandfather:
You must probably consider the biggest disappointment
to him, the lack of a granddaughter or a grandson.
Give me all your currencies and I’ll transmute them
at the gates of some great heaven
wherein lies a hellmouth & blackhole:
beauty beheld by the fly and we simply,
a galaxy inside each opal eye—
swirling around muted stars,
hoping some father comes down
from his high tower, house on the hill,
nothing on his back but husk & hull
peeled from brainstem to blossom end—
from which continuance is both bred & bled.
Years later, over lunch, I tell my grandfather
we are hoping to get pregnant next year
if we can finance and find a donor. . .
his lips don’t move, but his mountainous eyebrows rupture
& when I ask if he’ll have a relationship with them, he says:
I don’t think I’ll be around for that either way.
