The beginning of the poem starts off with Beaty narrating a game he used to play with his father called “knock knock.” He goes on to tell one day when he was three; his father no longer played the game because he no longer showed up. Beaty’s father was in prison. The game “knock knock” resembles the hurt and disappointment he carries inside of himself due to his father’s absence. This game relates to fatherless males because when a person knocks on a door, they are expecting it to be answered by someone on the other side. In relation, males growing up without a father have an expectancy for their fathers to teach them how to be men, they’re knocking on the door but their fathers never answer and they are left to figure out how to be men on
