F
F is for family, foster, for fragile safety. F is for faded sheets, faded clowns, circus elephants, lions, reds turned pink, blues like a haze over the mattress on the floor. F is for the streetlight I watched flicker beyond the window rather than sleep, for frightened of each creak, for the echo of footsteps, for the breath that stuck between five and four when I counted backward, for the fears that woke me, my body frozen. F is for the outfit my first foster mom washed, this is a good way to make a fresh start, don’t you think? F is for feel free to sign up on the dry erase board by the staircase if you want to talk to one of us. We will try to find time for you. F is for fuck off you’re not mine, I’m not yours, you are not my family.
F is for flash forward, for cradling foster, mine and son’s, for loss in his clenched fists, feeling my loss too, for forcing myself to wait until he is ready to be held. F is for family, this is his home now, mine too, for finalized adoption, for finally. F is for his foster mom misses him, for gazing at photos so we don’t forget. F is for furious at the distance from Denver to Seoul. He falls into my lap, his head hard into my chest, cries, pushes, yells, stomps. “I want my first mom, my foster mom, not you.” F is for fight to stay calm, fight to hold him, keep him safe, fight to keep his story where he can find it, fight to give him what I needed. F is for fumble through this version of forever.
Father
Old Spice steams
from his cheeks, small red
dots form on his chin. “That smarts,”
he sings to the side
of the foggy mirror. Lines
of dirt fill creases
along his wide forehead.
He traces the wall from the light switch
to the doorway, his fingers delicate
on the wall, the shape of me
ahead of him too vague
to believe. His blue eyes
shake, a dancer spinning,
falling, caught. I wait
to be found. He listens
for my breath, pats my head.
He bends down, brushes
my little girl eyes
closed, rests my palms
on his face, says he can
teach me to see.
