Forgive me, not long ago I was hiding butter knives in my pillowcase.
Before ground pepper dances on romaine she’ll ask about my father.
I’ll tell her when a father tosses his son into the air to fall back into his arms. How a father becomes a god.
I’ll leave out scrubbing my cheek blood from the sink and the dinner tables where my mother was left with no one beside her.
Does she know that boys grow up and fathers grow old?
According to psychology I’m ½ my father the rest is kissed by lemon rinds and drenched in butter.
Three days ago, I was craving my initials into wine corks. I haven’t slept since.
What else do you want me to believe?
At 7pm the white tablecloths fill with tea lights. Humor tells me to recite ghost stories.
When I speak softly I’m asking you to place your eardrum against my throat.
Cortex fear creeps off my tongue.
Sean Cho A.
Sean Cho A. is an MFA candidate at the University of California Irvine. His work can be ignored or future-found in The Portland Review, Hobart, The Minnesota Reviewand elsewhere. He is a staff reader for Ploughshares. In the summer of 2019 he was a Mary K. Davis scholarship recipient for the Bear River Writing Conference. Sean’s manuscript Not Bilingualwas a finalist for the Write Bloody Publishing Poetry Prize.
