A Confession (a sestina)

Jay Gatsby is my father

who is taller than any other,

and married Lily Potter only to find 

no Daisy. He bred an Emma Woodhouse

and a mystery child, a stranger. 

This is the man, who in his study

sits high, plans tacked all around to study, 

assuming to make him a better man, lover, not father;

in such irrelevant pursuit of a stranger. 

About him are justifiable this, that, and the other:

His past tales of pity, in a woeful woodhouse, 

and of desired lost—only to find

her, the universal her, who said, ”Go find 

a gold hat, sir, and you better bounce high.” On his study

he showed me a picture of his old woodhouse 

with an evergreen, a Daisy, and my father

suspended with the snow. “No other 

girl would do,” he said. “I am, to her, no stranger.”

In deficient love he married another stranger, 

my mother, Lily Potter, and couldn't find

his firstborn in his heart where his other 

cool, smiling daughter reigned. Emma was all over his study

walls. Perhaps his first mystery he was not meant to father— 

Daisy would have born him, regardless, his Emma Woodhouse.

Nevertheless, my Gatsby father looks upon daughter Woodhouse

with eyes like pool depths. Today, I see a tin stranger,

and he sees himself as "The Great Father";

sincere faith his gold hat and high bounce will find

much happiness. He’s written a schedule to study,

to be a suitor like no other—

failing to see the other

side of his Daisy, his fantasy by that woodhouse;

guilting all in his path while I conduct a study.

I observe his love is not a Daisy, but yet another stranger.

Her reality is with her Tom, her children, and she won't find

another gold-hatted, high-bouncing substitute. Give it up, father.

Your other daughter shows a side that is stranger

than fiction. Forget the woodhouse, take off the gold hat, and find

in your study a spot for me, Mr. Gatsby, my father.