40

Surrogate father sestina
Nathan Marquam

Losing a tooth is like losing a father— 
another soon grows in its place, though not 
immediately. First comes the blood-black absence,
the small cavern hidden inside. Then one day, 
it fills with jagged rock, something small and alive 
within you, that’s of  you, but haunted. I grew 

so fast I could hear my bones crack, outgrew
skirts and sweaters, friends, my name, the father
I was born with. He was an exoskeleton, not alive
the moment I left him, just the cells to die. Not
my fault, people said, but with each passing day 
I was a different shape— bigger in his absence

and brave, no walls of  him to contain me, and absence
became me, something exponential in the way I grew,
formless and large, more myself  each passing day— 
but like a poem, I wanted to be restrained. No father, 
no curfew, no shotgun warning for the boys. Not 
alone, but reaching always for something alive 

until I reached and found something alive. 
He tasted of  salt, morning breath, the absence
of  death, of  fathers, the word no. Before, I had not
known something worse than death. I grew
fond of  my own decay, eyes like my father’s 
blue and terribly still, counting days 

spent watching the sun pass me by, days 
spent afraid to let the world see me alive,
and the fathers lined up to save me. Fathers
with blackened lungs, charred in the absence
of  children and wives, fathers who grew
fond of  me, of  what I could fill in them. Not

- Best of  Poetry -



41

out of  obligation, they said, but love— not 
worth it when my chatter filled their days 
with incessant noise. I watched as they grew
bored of  my damage, but they were alive,
a line between me and the absence
of  me, chain wallet fathers, bar stool fathers, 

fathers I killed while they were still alive. 
I spent my days collecting each absence, 
grew into the shape of  a man, a not-father.