Maisha Z.

Johnson father-daughter narrative my father says he once wrote, too and this isnt another effort to grasp at some way to relate when he grew up on an island that feels many moons away from this land on which he raised me this, i know, is truth i can see it now though ive never seen it before my father, younger even than i am now, still breathing gingerly this new lands air, skin with a dark glow, freshly plucked from beneath the caribbean sun before the scrubs of medical school, before the touch of my mother, whispering words in an accent still thick with memory before placing them on the page and this is how i know his words were never buried this is now i know those stories arent lost when i finish writing a poem and look to see that its finished i find a voice there that isnt my own a voice thick with memory whispering all that id rather not remember but mustnt forget