I HAVE A FATHER, I HAVE A THOUSAND FATHERS .............................................................LIZABETH YANDEL

RUNNER UP

I Have a Father, I Have a Thousand Fathers

Poem by Lizabeth Yandel

They were telling jokes on T.V. late at night. They were driving the school bus, lifting me to drinking fountains I couldn’t reach. They were talking too much, telling us to quiet down, they were fixing broken stairs, they danced when they were drunk, cried when no one was around. They sounded like smoking lungs, like too many hours worked. They were not the first to run in abandon. They killed in battle on desert sand, were shot in city streets, they told me I was weak, they let their weakness lead them. They enforced sentences, they served time. They held me while I cried, touched me when I didn’t want it, didn’t touch me when I needed. They hated themselves for it. They wrote poetry, they hated poetry. They scribed the game rules from books of their fathers, and yelled when I did not follow the rules. They were better than that. My fathers were of every color skin, accent, tongue. They praised and cursed and knew no God. They felt the weight of their predicament, yet could not see the time-honored bars of their own cage. Their words were wise and ignorant, soft and full of rage.

Lizabeth Yandel is a writer and musician based in San Diego, CA and originally from Chicago. She is currently completing a lyric novella about the city of New Orleans, and a chapbook, Service, which is inspired by her long, dysfunctional relationship with the service industry. Her work can be found in Popshot Magazine, Rattle Magazine, and is forthcoming in Lumina Journal and 1932 Quarterly Journal.

A PAGE FROM "THE BOOK OF IF" by SHARON STEINHOFER