Coraddi Magazine

A Gift Can Be Tricky
Kelly Jones

My father calls and I don’t answer. He calls again
and again. I turn my phone off and in the morning
there are voicemails marked urgent, but
all they say is call me back, I want to ask you
something. This is a reality my relatives
do not accept, a harassment they think
harmless. Love is not
where it should be.
I don’t feel any for my father,
but pity pulls out of me
a sense of duty and a lonely man
is a sad thing to behold.
When the world cracks around me
two things may occur:
.                                       I will look for help
,                                       or I won’t.
My father believes that he is fine.
He buys my cousin’s wife fancy jewelry at Christmas
and gets mad if I don’t call him daddy.
I can’t accept anything from others
without wondering what it will cost me.

Kelly is a queer poet who is studying in the MLIS program, with dreams of being either a librarian or vagabond in the near-ish future.