gifted

My name is a promise that my father kept to an old man;
It is the hamburger grease fingers that
caught my body on his late arrival

It is my mother piercing the meniscus of afternoon
with sedated cries that could not page him
through converging acquiescence and strength

It is the heavy sacks in her lungs and skin imperfections;
My name is what remained of a house
that burned December to dust.