Small Worlds

by Caleb Azumah Nelson

I want to ask him, why? Why, all those years ago, would you say, to your own son, I don’t need you ? I want the freedom to walk over to him, to pull him into an embrace, to be held; I want to feel the heat of his love against mine, to know if he really did love me. But more, I need more. I want to know my father because, facing this man, I don’t know who he is, or who he was. I want him to tell me who he was at my age. I want him to tell me of movement, migration, burden, of having to choose which parts of your life to keep, which to let fall away.