‘The Truth’ by Natasha Rao

I am only kind to my father
in poems he will never read.

I try to imagine him small
the way my grandmother tells it:

patient, deerlimbed, pondering
polynomials. Wanting only

a Toblerone bar for his birthday
to eat alone in his room

away from the violence of exploding
raindrops, pitiless Madras summer.

I wonder if he is proud
of his life like I am proud

of my poems—the best
we could do. In another world

I would go down the stairs
to where my father is sitting alone

with his wine glass and I would tell him
I’m sorry. But I am a woman

the same way my father is a man: always
a little embarrassed.

Somehow it is easier to say I hated
practicing piano in the morning

than it is to say I loved
the way you turned the pages for me.

I cringed being woken up each morning,
pulled blinds and tough light, but I loved

your warm and capable hands on my forehead
brushing away the remnants of a dream.

Source: Rao, Natasha. Latitude. First edition, The American Poetry Review, 2021.