ORPHAN POEM
I.

I want my father’s cancer to fuck me like we just met on a dance floor
and again by the bar
and now here we are outside the bathroom
And the trash can be overflowing with paper towels
and the tiles are just clean enough
for us not to think about how dirty they really are
So we don’t think about how dirty they really are
just how dirty we want to be
as we carve places for ourselves inside of one another
because What’s blood really when it’s all shared

2.

In December the word melanoma
crept into my house like a foul smell,
it dripped through my family’s bloodline
like juice on the wrong side of the straw
it pooled until it hugged the walls of its container
and now everything sticks
the word stomach, the word intestines, the word catheter, the word orphan
I peel this last word slowly from my gut,
I hold it soft as gravel inside my mouth, orphan.
I forget wide brim hats, sun block and cruciferous vegetables
And this is how I wear high heels and lace for a cancer I want so badly
to pour through my body like a sugar rush,
and fuck me like it’s already been in this hole before

3.

We host a shiva, and everyone comes.
For the first time in my life MY house is THE place to be
as 87 friends and family bubble and pop into my living room
around the Rolling Stones, and Buckwheat Zydeco and the Beach Boys, and a bunch of other wack ass shit that my dad used to listen to
as we try to share a memory
that none of us are strong enough to hold alone
the gentle lilt of south Carolina in his ‘a’s
the softness of Charleston on the center of his tongue
how he read Shakespeare by the volume on the beach and
on the storm days he said,
‘Michael, now is simply the winter of your discontent’
and I had no idea what he was talking about.

But, my father, he’s not there,
my father’s jaw is wired shut in a locker in underneath jersey
his veins drained of the bad blood
but also the good blood
the blood that makes my father my dad.
instead tonight he is a sunken office chair,
a collection of stamps I add to but never really care for,
a playlist my friends share on Spotify but never really listen to,
a pair of photos I hang on the wall of every room I’ll sleep in this winter
but never really look at,
he is the eulogy I write
that everyone wants a copy of,
it is their favorite poem
the best performance
I have ever given.

4.
and my family
we wait till they leave
and they do.
Then my sister
takes down the pile of bills that has gathered over the last month because none of us know what to do with it
and she puts one on the floor, and she rubs her heel on it
then I put one on the floor, and I rub my heel on it
and we go back and forth
until it looks like we’re dancing
because we are
because we can still dance
we can still steady sing the song of grief even on an empty stomach
on no sleep
on the days we forget to buy groceries
and all the recipes they make,
the spare keys and the passwords.
I mean we might as well dance
until this house widens with our hips
and the whole block knows
this family clutches to life
like we’re afraid of losing any more of it
because we are
because we know no other option then to cling
even if we do it poorly, and we fight in the parking lot
at least we’re fighting each other
at least we know a sinking ship is still a ship
no matter where it’s going.

5.

And then there's me.
I sit here. And I feel.
And I say the word love
and sometimes the word orphan
but mostly the word love
and I write letters to the smoke that stole my father
and, sure, I dream it takes me with him.
I call friends. I read his old messages.
I do not remove his name from my phone.
I go to work,
and everyday is a fight to do something normal
like eat, like pray, like stay.
But I do stay
if not for me than for him,
for my mom, for my sister
who he loved.
I stay.
And I dance
I dance all the time.