A Poem for the Man Who Shot My Father
I don't know where you are now,
so for the purposes of this poem
I will imagine you are dead.
The circumstances of your death
should be ironic. A bullet smashes into
the back of your skull. A bullet
smashes into the back
of your skull. A bullet smashes
into the back
of your skull.
A coincidence.
For the purposes of this poem, but only
for the purposes
of this poem,
I will imagine you in a hell
where you are scraped and torched
each second, every second,
and you feel it all,
you feel everything.
For the purposes of this poem
I would like you to describe
my father's face
the moment he turned
and saw you
wild-eyed and thirsty
the moment he knew
the moment before he turned away
to run
And for the purposes
of this poem, I hold
that picture in my head. I will live
over
and
over
that look of an animal dazed
in the headlights
because, even though
I have imagined you dead,
you are probably not too dead to remember
that there is a hell
here too.
_____________________
Patricia Smith
The Intentions of Thunder
New and Selected Poems
Scribner, 2025
