Grandbastard

September 20th, 1981.
The L.A. Times reads
PENNOCK, Dr. Cameron Donald.
If he were just print upon a page
I would have again forgotten him,
I would have. Until this morning,
I didn’t know his name.
I’d only heard stories: He had
gambled money. He had
married a Christian. He had
abused substances. He had—
what are these worth, the
thrifted memories belonging
to a name not my own?
Still, I have lifted
it from an obituary
column in the hope
it is of some significance:
Either in the moment of his dying
he thought about me, his progeny, or
we are separated by two decades and a father
and I am alone for us to know one another.
The Times continues:
survived by his beloved mother, Thelma
Pennock; 2 sons, Mark and Kirk
I want to know my father’s father why
should I have to know my father too?
I want to love my father
should I have to love his?
Survived. In a way he cannot
have conceived—that man whose last
act was proving his own
worthlessness—I birth again.
I go down the Times:
Pennock; and cherished sister, Beverly
Pennock. Cherished. No
longer a name, nor a story—
as a person, I am not sure

how he might love me.
As a person, I am still
uncertain. Fainter than memory,
no less do I want like memory
to make mean something
the nothing left for me.
I finish the Times:
In lieu of flowers, donations to the
Hollywood Assistance League
would be appreciated.
In lieu of fathers,
I am a grandbastard.
Would the decision
to kill him be mine?
Could I take that from him,
have his suicide
become my murder?
This is a vague will, and
though I never knew him I
think death might be history.
In life he is:
In death he was a doctor.
Therefore, he—
He was a kind man.
He was a gentleman.
He is the nostalgia for a suicide
who needs me to survive.
THE FATHER, I am my father
I wished I were my father
to father his father
who are all in me the father.