Bernadette, who comes over sometimes to drink coffee with my own mama
and sometimes, if it’s a Friday night, one glass of wine.
Any more than that, Bernadette says,
and I forget my own name.
Even though she’s said that a hundred times,
she and Mama laugh anyway.
Ollie looks at my dad sometimes
with those bright green eyes like he’s deep
in a dream of remembering his own father living.
Ollie, who my dad used to call my son from another
father and mother,
which always made Ollie duck his head to hide
how red his face got
to hide how big his smile got.
Ollie says he doesn’t really remember the story of being a baby in a basket
but sometimes the story lives inside his eyes when kids ask
What are you?
You Black or white or Spanish or mixed?
And Ollie has to shrug and say
Maybe I’m all those things.
And maybe I’m something else too.
Once, when Ollie told my dad about
kids always asking him this,
my dad just gave Ollie a fist bump and said
You know what you are, Ollie?
You’re a hundred percent YOU.
Rap Song
Make me a rhyme, little man.
First day of school, first grade,
Beastie Boys blasting from the car radio.
We’re driving home, me with my lunch
box open on my lap cuz my after-school snack was always
what I didn’t eat at school—grapes, carrot sticks,
apples and peanut butter, whatever,
I dug it out, sitting in the back seat of my dad’s car.
September sun shining in on us,
Mama home or maybe visiting the grandmas, so much
I don’t remember. So many places where there’s white
space where memory should be, and some days I wonder
if my own mind is going like my dad’s. But that year,
he was still Daddy. Still playing ball and driving me from school
whenever he was home.
Make me a rhyme, little man, my daddy said, glancing
through the rearview at me with my mouth full
but my head moving to the Beastie Boys.
And then I must have swallowed. Must have said
My name is Zachariah
and I’m on fire.
Can’t go no higher
than Zachariah.
You got skills, son, my dad said.
Yeah, I said back.
Yo
I know
I think I got ’em from you.
Cuz you’re Zachariah too!
Unbelievable
The first time my dad heard one of my songs, he asked
Who wrote that?
We were in the kitchen and it was pizza night with
extra cheese, extra sausage and lots of olives.
I was singing because of that.
And I was singing because it was summer
and because the pizza smelled so good and the whole
day was only for us—no coaches calling,
no practice, no game to study, no fans
just me and my daddy—Mama in Arizona
visiting the grandmas. So it was
just us men and our pizza and all the rest
of the takeout we were planning to have
with Mama gone.
So I was singing about all of it—the summer,
our bright yellow kitchen, the good food
and me and my daddy alone
together.
I don’t remember how old I was, but
I remember my daddy’s smile.
You wrote that?
And me with a slice almost to my mouth, stopping
and saying Yep, it was all made up by me.
Then going back to singing, a song
about pizza and summertime,
a song about all the good things
already here
and the good things coming too.
On My Daddy’s Shoulders
I was on my daddy’s shoulders when
crowds gathered around us
pushing autograph books, T-shirts and
scraps of paper into his hands.
I was on my daddy’s shoulders when
a band marched through Maplewood
playing a song someone wrote
about the speed in his step
and the power in his hands.
I was on my daddy’s shoulders when
the TV ran their interviews
with him recounting the plays
of the Super Bowl game when the guy
on the other team let the ball
fly right through his hands.
I was on my daddy’s shoulders when
the crowds grew smaller and the coach said
Maybe next game—you need some rest,
then looked up at me and smiled,
trying not to stare too hard
at my daddy’s shaking hands.
The First Time, Again
I used to be a tight end, my daddy says, laughing.
But what I really wanted to be was a wide receiver.
Now I’m just wide.
The first time he said it, we all laughed
even Mama
and she usually just smiles when something is funny.
The second time he said it, I said
It was funny the first time, Dad.
The third time he said it, I said You always say that.
No I don’t, this is my first time, he said.
Stop messing with me, Daddy.
No, YOU, my daddy said, stop messing with me!
My daddy never shouts. But he was shouting.
My daddy never cries. But he started crying then.