The Island

My father walks with a limp, 

I think it’s from a heaviness he carries

One he soothes but never buries

I’ve mapped his secrecy, charted the silence 

I know the boat I must build to reach the island

I can’t blame him, I suppose

Reaping a crop he did not sow

His father limped, and the father before his

An heirloom passed from their lineage 

The questions take refuge under my tongue

A place they will die, unheard and unsung 

The patterns will persist, they will,  they must 

Who am I to make statues from all of this dust 

And my father will limp as he always has 

Running from something that lurks in his past

And I will live in fear

That i’m looking though a mirror

Praying what burdens my father’s father’s father

Is not passed down to daughters