let me not forget the cliche scents
of my dad, all red: cowboy killers
on his hip, old spice, his phillies cap
faded and stained with sweat, arab
oils on his wrists, wot my mother
cooked clinging to his hands.
i want to remember his dimples,
how he’d pour red label into oj
and say all the ladies used to kiss
me here and here in the morning
i’d sit at his bedside and listen
to his dreams of phantom children
crawling beside me on crimson carpet
he wanted a dozen sons
when the house was bright
before time covered it in dust
i peel back my own scabs to pluck
memories from my waning brain
shotgun, i stare while he steers,
his left hand still alive, he drums
some tizita out on the wheel
while he drives to kaffa
he says: daughter, do you know
where you are? in a pink shirt
his cane clicks thru the present,
he invites me for a tour of his new
kingdom :: fluorescent buzz, death
behind a curtain screamed for help,
grunting while he yells threats,
tells the sick to shut the up
uses his good arm to rise, to guide
me past a staff of daughters
who smile and call him papi,
they call me pretty, and finally
he says, of course this is my last
drop, my baby, he walks with me
slowly to the door, i don’t want
to let go or say i love you,
when he shows me out,
when he says stay good
instead of goodbye
Hiwot Adilow is author of the chapbooks IN THE HOUSE OF MY FATHER (@twosylviaspress) and PRODIGAL DAUGHTER (@akashicbooks, @AfricanPoetryBF). She is one of the 2018 recipients of the Brunel International African Poetry Prize and has been supported by the Pink Door Retreat and Callaloo Writers Workshop. Her writing appears in Winter Tangerine, Callaloo, The Offing, and Voicemail Poems, and has been anthologized in The BreakBeats Poets Vol 2.0: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Books, 2018). Hiwot earned her BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison as part of the First Wave Hip Hop and Urban Arts Learning Community where she studied Anthropology and African Studies.
