after Donald Rodney’s "In the House of my Father"
From the house of my father
in the house of my skin,
I proffer my palm, hosting
dermis and pins.
The walls are all cracked
with subsidence and lean,
in the house of my father
things are not what they seem:
The rings of the finger
the ages of bone,
the knuckle of threshold,
the idea of home.
The flesh hidden nails
keep some things in place,
they clench like a baby
to skin thin as lace.
I lose faith in my right
hand, flesh becomes lies,
but this hand is no gift
for the marriage of flies:
Its the dolls house in a dolls
house, the thing that lives on,
there’s no blood in these bricks
built by father for son.