I walked out on her
when she was one month old.
I was scared
and young
and didn’t know
how to love.
I ran as far and fast
as I could:
city to city
bar to bar
woman to woman
trying to forget.
Only years later
did I slow down
and give her time
to catch up with me.
Now on the eve of her eighth birthday
she has come to visit
for a week.
We go for a walk late at night
down the dirt road
behind my house
and her small voice
speaks to me through
the darkness.
I want to know
if you care about me,
she says.
This child I left to wolves
in a stark Las Vegas apartment,
delicate as a blade of grass,
stands before me
asking for the truth.
I take her by the hand
as we turn back
toward the house
and try to find words
to tell my daughter
what kind of man
her father has been.
Johnny Cordova's poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Louisiana Literature, the New York Quarterly, Salt Hill Journal, and elsewhere. He lives in the Arizona high desert, on Triveni Ashram, where he co-edits Shō Poetry Journal.