Epiphany

There was gossip emerging from bulging bellies,
and I was too awkward to romance girls.
The other boys, donning cheaply-knitted man hats , struggled to juggle growing up and giving life.
They tried to swear less-
Diapers slowly became more important
than the big game and shit-talking.
Their sweetheart, still young and blushing,
tested the temperature of milk on her wrist, instead of a corsage.
I watched them cradle what they did not yet understand, and I wanted it! So, I began to raise a poem.
The great thing about raising poetry is you don’t have to worry about missing their first word. I named this poem, Epiphany – I am a single father, and raised my poem-daughter
to feel comfortable to talk to me about anything. For me, every day is “Take Your Child to Work Day”; Sometimes I feel like Superman’s step-parents;
my co-workers worried about chicken pox,
I’m concerned that my child might live forever. Often times, I look at her and in amazement and say: THAT came from ME!

I didn’t know what to do when she told me she had her first period.

Like most parents, I let her older poems tell her what to do more than I should have.
She wore clothes I didn’t pick out and flirted with older poems I didn’t really care for. She kept me up all night,
because her distorted music
was shaking the walls
like a pink eraser rubbing
out our history together.

Desperately, I try to regain control of my creation and I tell her, you know,
Epiphany, I brought you into this world,
I named you after my mother’s mid-life crisis,
and I memorized your whole life

And although she is silent, looking at Epiphany is staring at my reflection in a wishing well.
I realize that this moment is not permanent.

My poem is asking for twenty bucks and the car keys when I cannot pay insurance and the utility bill.   She wants enough freedom to become something more than my intention.

She is not a little girl anymore. She once sat on my desk when we both should have been sleeping and asked,
“Dad, why is it that the world doesn’t give anything to creators, when creators give their everything to the world?”

Now, Epiphany, I realize what I should have said:
creations live a life beyond the intentions of those that make them and, in fact, become creators of their own.