Still, I Don’t Love My Father

In a Greyhound Station his last name

is read before my first

 

by the entrance attendant I hand my ticket to. Who

is kind & asks me “Why didn’t you bring

 

me breakfast?” It is 4 in the morning, I blush

to myself. Oedipus, I do not want

 

the older stranger inquiring

on his day’s first meal. I respond, “You

 

were bringing me breakfast today” a snappy

teen in my gullet. Glum, but glinting

 

in my cheekiness extended

to the aged stranger who I knew

 

was Nigerian before his exhort of such. I don’t love

my father, but the Greyhound says, “Your name

 

is beautiful is it African?” & he means

my name,

not 

my last.

 

& I cannot say I believe in love because

I love my father. No. That country stretched

 

itself large w/ new children. There is no room.

But I believe in love, 20th of January, even

 

in a Greyhound bus station where

fluorescents blink to bleakness, even

 

as my country inchoate

itches to slide me off its flag,

 

when I remember the Attendant in Atlanta

taught me hello in Ibo

 

when I told him I could not speak

my father’s language. Oh,

 

how the weeping followed.