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I Was My Father

- Abstract

I was my father: a bald, full-lipped man
with absent eyes, hoarse throat and mouth of wit,
studied heresy at the cabin hearth,
and bought the Times the first day off the ship.
I was my father; fought the kids who mocked
his poor wild pinching of the spitball class,
missed him like a tooth when I awoke
into adolescence, swore, harassed,
to outfather father: wish, work, win
what he had never dared, or lost. O,



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