burke: The Game of the Name #18

Your mother gives you a name.
Your bully gives you another.

- Epic
- Glen Armstrong

Because my grandfather,
her father-in-law,
wanted me called
Christopher, my mother
called me Andrew. Such traits
continue in my family, a tree
with Irish roots
and a stubborn trunk.

But my siblings called me
Cactus – for the hair all over
my body. So my early beard
and luxurious hair lead me
to be a poet in the mid-60s.

Now, Andrew, curmudgeon.