Kindred spirit

Kindred Spirit

My father doesn’t say ghost, though I know

he’s haunted. Instead he says, When they letUncle Marion out of that hospital, he didn’teven move the same. He said they tried to takehis stories. He loves his fifteen uncles fiercely.

Nearly all of them drank, did time in prison

or mental hospitals, died before forty.

When Marion was twenty; a judge offered him

the navy or prison. He couldn’t swim,so he ran away. Then, prison or the army.Marching hurt his feet. The third time,

he picked prison and was out in six months.I never liked to hear folks call him crazy,

my father says. He couldn’t help how he was.

What I know about my father tells me why

he loves these men—the troubles they ran from

and to, stories they lived without learning

what they meant—and why he mourns.

Each time my father had a choice, he chose

the world he already knew, holding still

till what he wanted looked like what he had.