​

 

i was cut cloth, half-sewn

from a mother who didn’t know her last name

but knew wealth as it came from

parent’s privileged pockets,

licked fortune like purple pomegranate juice

from effete fingertips.

 

i was nurtured

by a father who knew poor like the alphabet,

grew up tasting powder in his milk and

watched the world from beside the heater,

where it’s cold was not a complaint.

 

now i am the combination of

paid bills and maniac hands under couch cushions,

out-of-state tuition and student loans,

detroit summers and missouri winters,

a boy who never learned his own address

and a girl who knew hers by heart.

 

now i am the product of merit,

brown eyes that take the world for granted.

i am clipped lawns that will never know

hand-me down houses,

but my father tells me not to forget.