Guy Blake Kettelhack

My mother crammed me with the legacy

of everything that brought me into being:

Kettelhack to honor father,

Blake, as her surname’s namesake,

and Guy, to put the lie to any slight

suggestion that a name need ever have

a provenance that you can trace.

She could not tell me why

she’d named me Guy.

But I

through its sly

taste of anonymity

now gladly tug along the brace of history

embodied in that Kettelhack and Blake.

I do it for her sake, my dad’s and mine.

I like my name just fine.

.