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The Father You Needed to Be
You say a prayer for your sanity, a father who must father
The old fathers lament, tip their politically correct beers,
sit at the bar wearing hand shaped ball caps, scraggily
gray chin pieces jutting from fat jowls, remembering how
they always wanted it to be, not as it ever was.
They raised their kids by slaps and spanks, cry about
a world they no longer understand, scare each other
with points of the fingers, I fear they whine, I fear
for our grandchildren growing up in this world.
Their sons now the fathers, but a fatherhood the old
ones detest. You are not a father, you act like a mother,
correct that kid, you are babying him, why in my day
you turn eighteen you got a job, you got out of the house,
you became a man… not you, not your son, he sits in his
room and you do nothing, make a man out of him.
And you question yourself… are fathers still fathers
or have all fathers become the mothers we never had?
You work, your other works, you raise a good kid
in world you barely understand, one you have to…
