I see you in Chicago, twenty-five years ago,
a tall kid, surprisingly sure of yourself.
You have just arrived from the goat farm
to meet your father, the god you invented
after he left you in childhood.
It is the sunniest day you can remember,
and you walk the wide streets
of the city by his side in the dream
you have had all along of this moment,
except you are beginning to see how different
he looks, and how he does not care
about this in the same way that you do.
Which is when it happens, you are taken
inside the doors. Just like that
you are shut off from him, walking
in the weightlessness of your own fear.
And when you push your door, it leads
to other retreating doors, and again
and again, it takes you to the voice of him,
the fat man standing outside who has nothing,
suddenly, to do with your father and shouts
let go! let go! and you cannot let go.
-Wesley McNair