Honest lies
Dimpled chin and rosy lips,
Like the teacher’s pet in the nursery rhymes,
One last look and I knew she was mine,
My daughter whom I last saw when she was six
Quick bucks, he said he would keep her neat
I last heard from her on her 16th birthday
Said she was in a black limo, her gift for the day
Time passed on, like it always does
I saw her photographs in the antique frames
Hoping someday she would come running,
Throw her arms around me and say,
“Mama I love you, I thought of you every day!”
The day never came until his funeral,
When she was there to read his eulogy,
She hardly wept but I could see she was hurt,
Deep inside she knew, she would miss him so much
He never had time for his little daughter she said,
But he kissed her goodnight everyday to bed
When she was a teenager, he gave her allowance
A raise often came before she could ask for one
One day she spent it on a roll of cigarette
Today she realized she had made him infuriate
“I would never ask you sweetheart of what you want in life,
I know you would get it all, all right,
But if I may ask you, would you a promise keep,
Never lie to your father, not unless I sleep…”
And they both had cried that day by the fire place
He in the rocking chair, she wrapping him in her delicate arms,
“If ever I lie to you dad, it would only be to get mama back to you,
I miss her dad”; “I miss her too…”
And they both spent the evening fighting back tears
As they flipped through the pages of her scrap book,
“To our Sweetie, with lots of love- Mom & Pop”
Read the snap,
In which we kissed her on either cheek,
It was her last birthday in the old apartment,
Old friends, had come to say goodbye
And then one by one they had left, me too
Never to return until that day, she always wondered why?
She ended her father’s paean on a very touching note,
“Dad always said I would meet my mom, when he is gone,
And he was always a man of his words,
I know you are there ma, somewhere in this crowd,
But I am my dad’s daughter too, and I shall keep my words
I had promised him I wouldn’t lie, but to bring you back
And he’d asked me to be truthful until he is gone,
Today we meet again, on the occasion of his death,
And if he had just one more day,
I would have stolen him from you for a moment
And whispered, “Dad, just for you I lied under my breath…”