Daniel W.K. Lee challenges parental expectations and a son’s subtle pressure to conform.
—
Biography of a Heretic
I memorized the chapter with you
at age five, soup ladles for hands,
digging to Fujian for the starving ones
your mother swore would eat liver
without being asked twice,
because they knew obedience
made boys men.
You never met those sons
who grew up to be everything
you aren’t, did you?
I hear they have them in Spain now:
Moorish bachelors built like fortresses,
whose eyes are crusades
converting infidels like you—
who loved God more than me.
***
Originally published in The Boiler. no. 8, Summer 2013.
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