To My Wife's Step-Father Poem by Frank Bana

All because of you
I cannot wear white T-shirts
Or play Hey Jude
And other songs of '68
Around a busy house

In part for what you did
I cannot make love
To my wife, can't break through
The wall of anti-depressants
She has raised up to protect
Against your memory's assault

Thanks to your abuse
There are shadows hidden
In every moment of light
And unexploded ordnance, seeded in the soil
That should be the bed of love

You were God-fearing
You made her fear you like a god
Hiding in the congregation
Where you are buried now, I'm sure
It's you who are afraid

All we really need
Is for Time to back right up
To return to a beginning
Where you never adopted her
Nor could pose as any father
To agents of child welfare

Time for a brand new start
Where those long years of abuse
Have been strangled, all along with you
At the moment of birth

But for now it's clear
There'll be no reconciling
While this river runs its polluted course
Until another generation
Has reached another shore.