Call of Duty

By Howard L. Craft

My wife’s womb is a world
My son lives inside
At night I sing him his ABC’s
I want him to talk early
I place head phones on my
Wife’s belly and play 90’s hip hop
I think about holding him and rocking
Him to sleep with Wu Tang instrumentals
I think of the things I need to teach him
The man lessons, the Blackman survival
In America lessons
I hope he will listen better than I did
I wish my father were here to help me
I said ten fingers and ten toes
Healthy baby, when people asked me
Did I want a boy or a girl?
But I prayed for a son
Now I pray to get the father hood thing right
I pray and I pray that I won’t fuck it up.
Howard L. Craft is a poet, playwright, and arts educator from Durham, NC. He is the author of several plays and a book of poetry, Across the Blue Chasm.

Reprinted from Home Is Where: An Anthology of African American Poetry from the Carolinas, edited by Kwame Dawes. See review, page #.
Used with permission of the author and Hub City Press, Spartanburg SC.

Comments are closed.