The Family Tradition
by Daryl Muranaka
I am afraid that I am
not as strong as you,
as when fathers were
strangers, and husbands
were foreigners
even in their own homes.
I am abandoned
by someone who says
distance is stronger
than love. That love
is not enough to build
a family upon.
I wish that I was
as strong as you,
could sail the oceans,
endure the years alone
better than I have.
But maybe you did
not, and I only imagine
a life minus gaping holes.
I have sailed the skies
and lived in houses
that you did not build
and built a house
that would not be mine.
I don’t know you,
your face, your voice.
I only know that you
rode ships and crossed oceans
with no telephones,
received out-of-date letters
that inched their way
in large, heavy sacks.
I lean against the walls
of the Red Line T
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