Sustenance

/ Issue 13.2 /

Is it wrong to wonder if Yeats or James
Would ever have soared to single names
Without some thrust from the rocket packs
Affixed by fortune to their backs?
Their fathers, I mean. Both breeds apart:
One an acolyte of art,
One of language lashed to thought—
Their sons among the works they wrought.
Maybe if I’d been dealt a dad
A tenth the size of those they had…
As if I wouldn’t have settled for
A dwarf with an interior,
My father having as good as none
For all he let me into one….
That’s not to say he’d never hug
A tyke he termed a doodlebug.
To think those scraps of such a love
Were somehow sustenance enough.

Daniel Brown

Daniel Brown

Daniel Brown’s poems have appeared in Poetry, Raritan, PN Review, The Hopkins Review and other journals. His two collections are Taking the Occasion (winner of the New Criterion Poetry Prize) and What More?.
Daniel Brown

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Author: Daniel Brown

Daniel Brown’s poems have appeared in Poetry, Raritan, PN Review, The Hopkins Review and other journals. His two collections are Taking the Occasion (winner of the New Criterion Poetry Prize) and What More?.