To raconteur tongue,
          solar flare temper,
Mom’s cheekbones,
          Pop’s weak eyes,
to knuckle-busted hands,
          arachnid fingers,
Bible names,
          terracotta curves,
to plantations taken,
          vows broken,
a potential future: green-
         legged and stalling
         until the surgeon’s saw,
to musical ears,
         a fine reed of mouth,
solitary mothers,
         separations, restraining orders,
to holes:
         grandfather-shaped,
and fathers who
         fantasized absence,
plastic spoons,
         tall folks,
to soldiers, sailors
         in violent jungles,
roseless spring days,
         nights above melodic
         crack vial crunches,
to Bed Stuy,
         gunshots beyond school fences,
grandmother midwives,
         Ellis Island,
to Atlantic graveyard,
         blackened sea floor,
bad hearts,
         troubled brains
to titles, never-ending christenings,
         mistakes both breathing
         and not,
accepting blame,
         love under gaslight,
child-shaped collateral,
         juvenile bulls-eye,
to never ending right:
         a daughter, a poem.