I remember when my dad started sleeping with…

I’d bump into them in the hallway at night

when I tiptoed down to fetch apple juice.

Sometimes they would smile and pinch my cheeks.

Others would slink into the walls, skirts hitched.

There would be ten or twelve on the go: lollipop

ladies, cashiers, accountants, police, two politicians,

a priest. They would bang on the bathroom door

if I lingered too long in the john. When I flushed,

another would appear. It got to where I couldn’t breathe

for his extramarital lovers. I’d sneeze, blink, and

surprise! There goes one more! Back then, my dad and I

didn’t see eye to eye—or any bodily part to another.

To reach him, I’d holler at the nearest one to hand. Listen,

you can still hear my words pass along the chain, ear to ear.

Notes:

This poem is part of the folio “Freed Verse: A Reckoning of Black British Poets.” Read the rest of the folio in the September 2025 issue.

Source: Poetry (September 2025)