Year of writing 98. 8/30

4/8/12

8/30  William Burr, Sr.

He was not gentle with me,
didn't need to be.  His arms steel
lassos, drawing me into his chest
to say "listen, this heart is
your heart, this is a man's rhythm.
Listen, you will be a man."

I was a boy with no ritual,
all soft hands and elbows on the table.
He'd make the silverware jump
with his fist, the following silence
a lesson in civility, of manful
decorum. He filled my hands with tools:
a wheelbarrow, a rifle, a pocketknife;
the components of regimen.

The mettle of his embrace,
the love, unveiled and raw,
the rigidity of custom;
these align my posture on days
when the world slumps,
testosterone not enough
to define identity.  When the
blood in my ears sounds like a man.