The Borders of a Man
My father was
a concrete man:
welded hard by ash and stone,
unfeeling like a rock
paperweighted on shores
farther than the edges
my childhood can remember.
My father was once
the god of mystery
in the stories
I used to write for myself,
an over-bent hatchet edging
the manicured borders
of a man
I never knew.
My father knew
the strength of silver fencing,
the wrought iron distress
of projection, like home movies
shifting in a light
that existed a second
before my eye could
picture it.
My father canaled
under the illusion of sanctity,
fought tooth and nail and church
across the topography
of a self—dredged
on the other side
of memory’s resulting truth.
My father was
a lighted buoy
on a rolling length
of red seas and waves
curled into themselves
by an unstable gravity
kindled in the mind
of a lost impression.
And
I was
always on
the margins,
just past the outer rim
of a place
that never
existed.
Rachel L. McMullen is a teacher, freelance writer, editor, and poet. Her work can be found in Oracle Fine Arts Review, Eunoia Review, Three Line Poetry, Unbroken Journal, and elsewhere. She is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of Random Sample Review.