UNPRODIGAL

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my nose is broke like my old man’s

I don’t know the story behind his

but mine used to make me proud

not to be anything like him

but different
from the staid and safe people
growing up in my hometown

none of that matters now

my old man’s gone

I don’t live there anymore

those people became who they became

or they stayed the same

the dust sifts into all our dreams

and to dust love makes its petitions

I’m almost as old as he was

when he stepped into his last dream

I’ve a confidence where once was an innocence

walking in a twilight of wisdom and dread

I don’t need to street fight anymore

don’t have to be any different

than him or them

I don't ever have to go back

to the working, middle-class

East Coast

where my Father fought and died.