lineage
This is a “Poem of the Day” feature piece
my granddaddy kept liquor in his shoe
stumbled from a one-room Jackson, Mississippi house to a TWO bedroom way across the country leavin big mama and ha five kids wit tha sobering reality of tha 40s desertion/ gone—no use in stayin it must be in his blood
which he tucked in his shirt pocket and kept with the other staples of fatherhood he forgot to give to my daddy
left behind his allergies his itchy eczema them 2 big hands nd 2 wide feet and a general disinterest in bein my daddy but seemd to hav taken the trace of his face in any of these photographs a shadow figure nameless except to say that nigga wit yo daddys same name gone
so bcus he left fermenting the soles of his feet my daddy wont take a sip wont even eat the food if its been sittin in liquor
© Ama Akoto (2018)