Time dances backwards on a path
of stubborn leaves, lifting the
fog’s clouded canopy as I realize, that
a year ago today,
Daddy left.


Bound by handcuffs of insecurity,




he’ll never break free.

Reminiscing raindrops intertwine
with my tears, failing to
cleanse the stench of poverty that
encrusts these cardboard streets.

Freedom must be better behind bars.

The murderer’s rewarded for slaughtering flesh
with meals that sizzle, hot and fresh.
Larceny’s theft can joke and laugh
about the broken pieces he never swept.

Daddy lives life sentenced ahead;









my family lives a fight, every vague veil of night.









Donning whiskey stained rags to
shield my bones, I savored one last
Ritz, made stale by hours
of desperation. Then I stomped

the crumbs into dirt, watching as
the Earth’s collection of the failed
reached out, gathering the
disintegrated remains of
my lost American dream.