Brent Malone
for Marissa

her father is not her own, our father too

not only politicians have fathered the nation,
artists have too

at my mother’s funeral, young people I did not know,
I’d never seen before, washed in tears

my eyes were dry

ashamed as well as baffled over these bereaved

I thought my mother’s death, my family’s loss
some others were as shaken as I was, some more

what tie had they which her death unraveled
falling like ribbons, falling like rain

her father is not her own, our father too

not only politicians have fathered the nation,
artists have too


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
4:09 p.m. 24/march/06