Looking back
at my boyhood,
I have almost no memories
of my father touching me
other than to discipline and punish.
I have no memories of him
running his hand through my hair,
holding my hand,
or holding me in his arms.
On those rare occasions
when he was required to touch me,
I have retained only the memory
of his haste and awkwardness.
I have a particular memory
of sitting in the bathtub one evening,
when my father decided to dispense a lesson
on how to properly clean one's face.
He grabbed the washcloth
and proceeded to scrub my face
as if he were scouring a dirty skillet,
leaving it scarlet and stinging.
Of course, at the time I didn't realize
that my father was afraid to touch his son
with any degree of delicacy or tenderness,
this being, to him,
less than manly.
So this tiny moment became a subtle lesson
about touching another person's body.
I understood that it was something
vaguely unpleasant and shameful,
something mildly repulsive,
something to be executed with haste,
and avoided
if at all possible.
In contrast . . .