In This Poem, My White, Jesus-loving Dad with Glasses and Bad Jokes is Undead
I didn’t say God isn’t real.
It’s that I can’t get a read on him.
I told a man how shocked I was that the night took a turn
to his bed—I wasn’t. I’m not a seer, I just know myself.
But I do have dreams. They are not like the hallucinations,
though those are real, too. I mean I have a lineage.
God made Mami a tiny car made of light when she was a child.
Little Mami picked up the little car, zoomed it around in the air.
Mami tells me this story when I tell her the psychiatrist
thinks I have psychosis. Mami rebuttals that I am
the blessed of the Lord. I don’t think my Dead Dad—
when he was my Alive Dad—knew that me and Mami
are the blessed of the Lord. Dead Dad knows now.
One Sunday at church with my Alive Dad, I asked the pastor,
if Jesus is God, then how come the men could pull
at his beard, and hit him, as I gestured at my own
9-year-old, imaginary beard and swung at the air.
After service, dad told me I had asked a good question.
Alive Dad led children’s bible study before Sunday service.
There was one kid we called the bad joke kid. The answer to his joke
was always, a giant donut, and he’d let out a laugh
as wide as Jesus’s spread arms. He wore glasses, if I
remember correctly. He was white. Alive Dad also wore
glasses and was white. Maybe I’m conflating the two.
But the child was real, even if his appearance
is fabricated by my misremembering. I don’t know
if I misremember often. Make no mistake, my dad is alive
in this poem. His glasses are on, his skin is white,
and his jokes are bad. He likes cozy snacks and plays
videos games with us on the weekends and loves Jesus.
Jesus is his favorite. I ask him if he loves God or me more,
and he says he has to love God more. In this poem,
he loves me more. The pastor never did answer my question,
but I remember feeling what mom feels when she uses her psychic
powers to gauge if someone is lying. Empty,
like something is missing. I don’t know if my white,
glasses-adorned, Jesus-loving, Alive Dad who told
bad jokes knew that mom is psychic. Mom says
I have the same gifts as her and my great-grandma.
It’s our Puerto Rican, matriarchal lineage. Alive dad
would be pissed if he knew my mom saw his Dead Dad ghost
in our living room. Jokes on you, white, glasses-wearing,
Jesus-loving Alive Dad. My Dead Dad knows how to take a joke. Knock, knock.
It’s Jesus, back from hell.
***
Author photograph courtesy of Daniella Toosie-Watson
