My Wicked Wicked Ways Are Over – Contemporary Poet

This is a late Poetry Journal #2...

This is my father
See? I’ve mentioned him before
Doesn’t he still look like Errol Flynn
Wait…
Where did his hat go?
That he used to tip over one eye
His baggy pants our long gone
But why?
Why does he still wear those shoes
The two toned ones
My mother hates

Here is my mother
She cried,
However… this time…
The sun wasn’t shining
But the woman,
The one my father knows,
Is here.
She’s been here for a while

This time my mother is sad.
Her face pale
And the shoe she threw,
Is on her foot.
However this time,
No one will forget,
And my mother’s days
Will come soon

My father’s funeral,
I am older now.
And my mother already knows
I am bad, but…
My father can’t punish me anymore.
My wicked wicked ways
Are over.

Analysis: Sandra Cisneros’ “My Wicked Wicked Ways” talks about how she will turn out bad, yet the majority of the poem is talking about birth. She clearly, explains her mother and father’s characteristic, explaining how her father physically looks and how her mother has to put up with something. However, she does not clearly state that it is pain that she is going through. I can interpret that is what Cisneros tried to convey because her mother had thrown one shoe at her father. In my contemporary response poem, I try to tie in her similar structure, and story telling, yet I talk about death. I also try to convey that because her father is gone and her mother is mourning, her father can’t punish her anymore and her mother is experiencing pain herself.