Chiwenite Onyekwelu

Duplex for my Father

         My heart is fragile like the skin of a pear.
         A room on fire, every doorframe leaking ash.

Like a god, he made the door leak its own ash.
My father phones to ask when will you be back?

          When will you be back, he phones but never asks.
           I carry his love like a scar beneath my neck.

A scar, beneath my neck, how is that his love?
Once I thought Asclepius was the god of health.

          Then he built a heart & a god was made.
          Breathe, Doc says, what you have is angina.

When I phone my father, I don’t mention I have angina.
Even in my body, the wreckage begins in the chest.

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