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The Long Way to Forgiving My Father
by Soren Vance — the poem does not scroll away while you write about it.
The poem
He taught me how to check the oilby never once explaining why,just handing me the rag and waitingfor me to ruin it myself.
I used to think that was the whole of him —withheld instructions, a doorwayhe stood in without stepping through.
It took me twenty years to noticehe was teaching me the only wayhe'd ever learned a thing himself:by getting it wrong first, alone,with someone standing near enough to watch.
I am still angry about the rag.I have stopped being angry about the man.
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Already said
1Dev Ramanathan2026-09-20
The rag is the poem — everything else is scaffolding around one unexplained object, which is exactly right, because withheld instruction is the whole inheritance you're describing. Where I'd push you: the closing couplet resolves too cleanly. "I have stopped being angry about the man" arrives like a decision, and the poem up to that point has been about things that were never decided, only noticed. I'd trust the noticing all the way to the end and cut the announcement.