In my father's house
were many children.
I entered on a warm May afternoon
as they waited dinner for my coming.
Screaming over the mew of kittens beneath the bed,
I arrived, another mouth to feed.
In my father's house
there must have been joy and love sometimes,
although I haven't heard of it,
for all they tell about is anger, deceit,
betrayal and division, within its well framed walls.
In my mother's house
he came to visit and built another room or two
for my mother, my brother and I,
apart from that other family I hardly knew,
hammering, sawing,
plumb line and chalk marking his way.
In my mother's house
without him I grew from child to woman,
trying to figure out what it might have been like
to have him around when I needed comfort
or encouragement from my dad.
In my mother's house
the others sometimes came,
separate and aloof, different in their sameness,
not like us, yet from the same seed
having grown in ways unknown to me,
acting out their own beliefs.
In my father's house
I wonder how it really was
and how the truth would throw its light
upon the shadows of tell-tale memory and
set free my aching need to know
the man within my father's house.
