My father and I share a black belt.

When people ask me for a fun
fact I lie and tell them about my
black belts-- and they think
it's funny because I'm short
and spaghetti veined. I'm stringy-
like flimsy hair of banana 
peels or clementines. I've always smelled
like a corn husk doll and I startle like 
a blue bird even though my father
taught me how to spike my hair like
a blue jay.

But I've never been a blue jay-- 
Sometimes at night I would crawl
up the stairs on all fours as if
descending back into the primordial 
soup-- turn the corner and flinched to see
my father in the same night saunter--
holding a beer bottle like a door knob
and he would say "There's my black belt--
all those lesson and your only defense
is to fall on the ground."
And he would laugh and I would
laugh different.
And we would say nothing more. 
But it's not true. I am not a black belt.
I'm half a black belt-- 
the other half wears his cut out
of fake leather-- practiced katas with me
in the strangled hair of the back yard
using stones as markers--
my father new the forms before I did.
My father was a sensei and a sparing mat--
cut my hair short so I could
"fight like a boy" and I always
wanted to fight like boy I've 
never fought like anything other than
a pixie-- maybe I liked the katas
best because the grass was cold on
my feet in the yard or maybe I liked
to mess up sometimes so me father would
correct me-- because I liked the sound of
his voice-- maybe I've never been
a black belt at all-- I've always been
a person of white cloth and 
short hair-- 

When I broke the last
board during my belt ceremony I missed
the first time. I wasn't sad because I had
missed. I didn't care.
I cried because my father had saw me 
miss and I was so scared
that he had trained with me for nothing.
I looked up. I remember my foot hurt.
My hair was sweaty banana string
shoe laces on my face--
He was still smiling and standing
crossed armed in a patient stare.
And I broke it--

we broke it.

My father and I share a black belt.