Firstborn

You named me for the red queen
and I became her effigy in black, all
red eyes and chipping black nail polish that I never wore to your funeral because at the time I was too young for nail polish or funerals and Chanel hadn’t yet come out with #40 Noir Céramic in 1989 but when my mother cried Metallic Vamp all over the kitchen tile there was no way of scrubbing it off
without acetone and 2x bleach that she polished all your bowling trophies with before stashing them in a bookshelf at the corner of the basement to collect dust and cobwebs next to a lampshade and half-empty cans of paint thinner leaning against your tarnished five-iron that I’d brandish like the scepter of the Queen of Hearts in paper jewelry and a counterfeit crown since I never became the royal you conceived or unfurled wet wings emerging as your monarch dream, letting the chrysalis ashes scatter from black-red wings— forgive me Father.