By Kimberly O’Connor
To my father who wakes before dawn to bring light to the new buildings. To the buildings built around him. My father in his work boots. My father in his overalls. My father in his grouchiness. My father in his rage, bringing light to the schools and the hospitals, to the empty, shining museums, to new banks, to new hotels in the city, to new factories, to my father raging, hating, refusing to speak, bringing light. My father, not calling me. My father, who is not my father. To light.
To my mother bringing hairbrushes to the nursing home. To my mother bringing plastic to the dump. Bringing casseroles to my sister, dresses to her sister, milkshakes to her brother, hot dogs to her father, to my mother bringing flowers to the cemetery. To my mother burning the leaves. To my mother burning a blunt. To my mother burning.
To my child bringing his rage to the carpool. To my child bringing his body to the climbing rope. Grabbing and pulling. To my child bringing his fucking foul language to the fucking dinner table. Fucking card games. Fucking pillow fights. Fucking movie night.
To my sister and her fucking Schnauzers. Her fried chicken and ranch dressing nachos. To my grandfather and his funerals. His eyelashes. To my cousin and her fucking horses. Her boots. Her goats. To ranch dressing. To cross dressing.
To my father and his secrets. To my mother and her Easter memes. To Jesus on the cross. To my mother’s Jesus, bleeding. To my mother bleeding. To me, my mother’s bleeding heart daughter.
To books. To all the books my mother never read. To all the words I wrote my mother never read, and to all the words I wrote my mother read. To my mother’s tears. To Easter celebrations, to cold spring wind, to Easter dresses, to me pretending in Easter dresses. To bleeding Jesus, weeping.
To bells. To the wind through trees and the sound of wind on leaves. To silence.
To Jesus on Easter. To the people celebrating Jesus in their finery. To the people condemning other people on Easter. Condemning women, women who have jobs and women who have abortions and women who don’t wear dresses. To them condemning women in pants.
To pants. To women in pants. To hell. To burning in hell. To voting districts and their shifting boundaries. To money. To burning money. To burning flesh in the pits of hell. To guns. To freedom and guns. To guns in pickup trucks and guns in holsters. To guns in the church pews and guns at the poolside. To guns on the beach. To guns in the Prius. To guns in schools. To teachers with guns.
To Easter. To bells. To bells from the church and bells from the hippies and bells from the Hare Krishnas. To bells on my earrings. To bells in the treetops and bells on the beaches. To bells at my wedding and bells at my funeral. To bells in the morning.
To the people eating burritos on Easter. To the people clogging the street outside the burrito place and to their immortal souls. To the people in churches on Easter and to their immortal souls. To the people in hospitals. To the people in prison. To their immortal souls.
To the daughters of the revolution. To bikinis. To handmaids. To topless beaches. To endless margaritas. To my childhood friend on Easter and to her daughters. To her husband. To their fucking cotton money. To the South and all it wants from me. To the ghosts of the South. To the men who died by lynching. To the fucking lynchers burning.
To Jesus and what he would do. To Jesus weeping. To Jesus driving. To hiking Jesus and Jesus playing tennis. To Jesus eating a burrito. To Jesus judging and Jesus forgiving. To Jesus in church, to Jesus in prison. To his immortal soul.
To children, their souls and their deadnames. To me and my deadname. To deadnames. To grief. To guilt and all it has taught me. To blame and to burning. To all these words on the page. To breaking.
Kimberly O’Connor is a North Carolina native who lives in Golden, Colorado, where she teaches for Colorado School of Mines and Community College of Denver. Her book White Lung was a finalist for the 2022 Colorado Book Award.
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