Orphan

I realized I was an orphan
at forty,
beside my mother’s coffin,
in a church,
where time forgot to die.

Beneath the gaze of seraphim
with wings full of eyes,
I spoke for the first time
the word a one-year-old
babbles with a smile:

“Father.”

Then I added:
“I forgive you.”

I lit a candle,
but not at your grave.
I do not know where it is,
and I do not want to know.
Besides,
you are no longer there.

I could not hate you,
because I was never allowed to.
How could I have longed
for an embrace
whose name I did not know?

At ten,
I found a hidden photograph:
the two of us.
Me — a newborn.
You — happy. Or so it seemed.
Who can say?

It took me forty years
to understand
why I kept abandoning myself
in relationships
where I was not chosen.
And I still betray myself
just as much.

On a dark night of the soul,
I pulled from Pandora’s box
a letter whose words
had almost faded:

“I, R.N., Phoeby’s father,
relinquish her
in exchange for whatever sum of money
may be due for her upbringing.”

What a paltry bargain.

And I still sabotage myself,
believing
I do not deserve
what is best.
That I am a broken part
in a perfect mechanism.

Once,
I saw a cat devouring its own young.

Perhaps that is why I keep
that ghostly half of my lineage
inside a perfect bubble,
so that absence
does not devour me alive.

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Author’s Note:

Dear reader,

I invite you to read this poem for what it is: an artistic act, but also a deeply personal one. Everything in it is true — I never knew my father. In my childhood, this subject simply did not exist. No one spoke about it, and I instinctively learned that I was not supposed to ask questions.

I was a happy child, yet it took me many years to understand how an absence can go on living in a person’s choices. This poem is part of my process of understanding that personal history.

In the poem, Pandora’s box is a metaphor for the subconscious — the place where we keep things we are sometimes afraid to look at.

For me, writing is a way of giving shape to an emptiness that will probably never be completely filled.

Take care of yourself, and live beautifully, wherever you may be.