My Daughter by Alex Carrigan (Virginia, 31)

I imagine my girl across from me

waiting for me to speak,

wanting to understand why I

am unable to start the conversation,

why I gave her hair that knots like shoelaces

and eyes that hardly reflect back.

The name I engraved upon her-

and I know that she is

wanting an answer, and

can’t break the silence, for I

am still unable to explain

why I chose to pass on

These attributes that define her;

what does it reveal about her?

Rachael? Sophie? Jenifer after her Nanny?

I couldn’t name her Claire because

it didn’t work with our surname.

There could be another parent

sitting beside me in this moment.

I’ve been single for thirty years,

so maybe it’s easier to imagine

myself as a single father,

Imagining my girl across from me,

my girl, my girl,

Her name didn’t emerge from fog-

I was lost in the haze, and

I wished that I could imagine

providing that assurance,

but to be honest:

I doubt I’ll ever have children,

that maybe I’ll at best end up only as

someone who doesn’t have to sit quietly

and she could just be “my girl,”

​and I could be something to her.

​
After Safia Elhillo

Alex Carrigan (he/him) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Alexandria, Virginia. He is the author of Now Let’s Get Brunch: A Collection of RuPaul’s Drag Race Twitter Poetry (Querencia Press, 2023) and May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). He has had fiction, poetry, and literary reviews published in Quail Bell Magazine, Lambda Literary Review, Barrelhouse, Sage Cigarettes (Best of the Net Nominee, 2023), Stories About Penises (Guts Publishing, 2019), and more. For more information, visit carriganak.wordpress.com or on Twitter @carriganak.