Originally posted 9/30/2011.

“they have the father wound”
says the handsome minister
speaking of gangbanging boys
not yet out of their teens

“they have the father wound”
he says again to the interviewer
“fathers take off
or are in prison”

“the father wound”
he says it so gently
candles appear in soft focus 
behind his graying voice

“the father wound”
sounds so deep yet
the minister speaks of how
he thinks he can suture it

as if the killers
off-camera were infants
waiting to be picked up
in their fathers’ hands

and cuddled into health
as if assisting them
into the American dream
would be enough

as if that dream itself
would be enough
to keep them from harm
in this country nestled

at the bottom of a father wound which is
at the bottom of a mother wound which is
awash in the blood of other wounds
named Sand Creek, the Middle Passage, My Lai