Every day my welts bleed
Like the day I was suspended
In the fourth grade
For disrupting the learning
Process of the other children
  
No child should be sent home for that
No child should be sent home after that
No child should be sent home back to that
No child should know this pain
  
Mother said I was faking it
  
I try to sleep at night
Lying there
My welts still bleeding

I only beat you
Because I love you
Mother said.  After I died.
  
She wanted me to be good
So she beat me 'til I bled
Now I'm dead

Fathers
With girl daughters
Fathers
With boy sons
Fathers who strive
Fathers who thrive
Fathers
With without families

Fathers
who do what they have to do
For their girl daughters
For their boy sons
Who need presence
Who stomach absence
Fathers who want to be home enough but are not home enough,
in the evenings

Fathers who
have to make a conscious
decision: succeed or fail
Who bought mufflers so
Their girl daughters and
Boy sons could done jackets
Who freeze
So their families wouldn't get a frostbite

Fathers who stopped everything
To give everything
Fathers who lost to gain
Fathers who cry
Fathers who return
No words spoken
everything said
Fathers who did not return, physically,
but were received
Folded flags,
Where no words were spoken
but everything was said

Fathers
Whose stories have never been told
Yet be told
Fathers who serve
So their girl daughters and
Boy sons could sleep and purr

Fathers who bind broken limbs
Fathers who accomplish one
To be bedevilled by two
Fathers both mom and dad
Who tie ribbons and
Talk to dolls
Who brush out tangles
And buy pads
For their girl daughters
Fathers on five jobs
Who crouch on couches
Fathers who chase demons
Fathers who tell tales
Fathers who switch off lights

Fathers who rise before the sun
Fathers who rise with the sun
Fathers who died
Fathers whom we lost
Fathers new
Fathers old
Fathers everywhere
Fathers whose
Girl daughters changed them
Like Common
Fathers blessed with Riley Curry's
Whose warmth
Whose joy
Whose girl beauties
warm the world


Fathers who have lost fathers
Fathers who never rocked their
Girl daughters and boy sons
A joy they only saw on a scanner
Fathers who had to give up their
Girl daughters and boy sons
Unwillingly
Only to begin to die themselves,
Plant a tree.

(c) Lake Adedamola

If I were there I would caress your heart
with the thread of a silken cocoon
Stitched now as one on the eve of the weary,
bound by the light of the moon
Careful to touch oh so soft as a feather,
gentle as spider web tears
Keeping you close on the edge of the tomorrow,
shielding your soul from the fears

Dew drop beliefs on the lawn they are waiting,
prisms of lighthearted scenes
Dandelion clouds offer sweet pea protection,
dragonflies float in between
Watching as breezes of painted day whispers
on kite strings of warm summer fire
Sing with the echoes, repeating their sonnet,
offering all you desire

Though all I have is a poet’s conviction,
spilled now in ink penned to share
Hoping on dreams you will rest in the sunrise,
find a few moments to spare
Taking the hand of this forgotten hero,
trusting in him ever true
Open your eyes for a new day is dawning,
written with love just for you