“Fate” by Sharon Olds

Finally I just gave up and became my father,
his greased, defeated face shining toward
anyone I looked at, his mud-brown eyes
in my face, glistening like wet ground that
things you love have fallen onto
and been lost for good. I stopped trying
not to have his bad breath,
his slumped posture of failure, his sad
sex dangling on his thigh, his stomach
swollen and empty. I gave in 
to my true self, I faced the world
through his sour mash, his stained acrid
vision, I floated out on his tears.
I saw the whole world shining
with the ecstasy of his grief, and I
myself, he, I, shined,
my oiled porous cheeks glaucous
as tulips, the rich smear of the petal,
the bulb hidden in the dark soil,
stuck, impacted, sure of its rightful place.