Lavar Munroe, Our Father, 2019 (Artist Website)
Acrylic, spray paint, cap, condom wrappers, baby bibs, paper sword, Christian cross and BandAid on canvas
72 x 48”
When you are born a jíbaro
into a heap of tobacco leaves
three months after the wind
takes down the family farmhouse
you look for a roof at the bottom of a glass
for the rest of your life.
You walk to school with no shoes on
and a cigarette in your mouth.
You don’t pray; you do better
than your parents did
at raising you.
And because the worst has already happened
at a hundred miles an hour
you look people in the eye
and tell them the truth.
You enlist in a stranger’s army
to feed your brothers,
and play the same game of war for a decade
and never complain.
You plant aloe and grapefruit and mango
to feed your wife
with the same macheted hand
you were dealt.
You punch in and out in the same brown suit
every day
to feed your daughter
before cocktail hour,
before feeding yourself.
You kill a rabid dog with a can of sardines
to stay alive for your daughter’s daughter,
a girl you don’t yet know
who looks to the bottom of your glass
for a roof.