Charles Uzor

                                             sits across from me
and passes a photo of his son, pointing out
our somewhere-around-the-eyes resemblance,
 
and in this tall son with dark curled hair, I see
my own unfathered-form and so Charles Uzor
becomes my newest father and there is so much
 
catching up to do. I tried to fix my marriage
and still it collapsed, I tell him, my whole family
has a new frame. Charles Uzor’s face listens
 
dignified by his spectacles and the sunlit window.
There is a marble table between us. On the back of his seat
rests his walking stick and with all his serious years
 
he cracks a joke, pulls a grin and lets in
some silence, telling me that he too knows divorce,
and yes, people assume it’s always the men who
 
walk away. Some people will leave you
says Charles Uzor, and some people will stay
in a different shape. His voice moves me
 
and my neatly-in-the-ground father
loosening the knot in my neck
and for at least as long as I sit facing
 
Charles Uzor’s magnet-black elegance, I am given
rest from the present pain, still tender
in my chest, and I receive a stretch of light
 
which begins and smoothly runs across
Charles Uzor’s ear and chiselled chin and towards
my own face, somewhere around my eyes.