How do I pay
For my father’s sins?
Do I sell the land in
Which he was buried,
Leave the money
On the doorstep
Of some small orphanage,
Or send it floating down
The river in a basket like
Baby Moses?
Do I strike
His face from each picture
With a felt tip black marker,
So the world forgets his visage,
As his body rests
In restless slumber?
Would that not wipe
His sin finally from the record?
Would that not be the victory
Which he has desired?
Perhaps his sins should be
Taken like the bodies of
Medieval prisoners and dangled
From the cathedral steeple
As a warning to abandon hope
All he who follow in these footsteps.