Taking My Name Poem by Randy McClave

She will take my last name
I will not ever take hers,
I don't care of the gift of money or fame
Or any of her demands or offers.
I will not take the name of her father
That name will never be my next,
And while going one step farther
I will not ever wear the name of her ex.

She will wear the name of my family
As my mother had once done,
A man doesn't become the branch of another tree
Neither will his son.
I will do as my father had did
And as his fathers had done before him,
And that tradition I will not ever forbid
I'm a mighty branch, and not a weak limb.

She will not wear the maiden name of my mother
I will not wear the name of her past,
I will not wear the name of her brother
She will wear the name that is my father's last.
Her last name will not be one of my exes
Her name will be the name that unto which I was born,
I'm a man and she knows what my sex is
So, proudly and manly my father's name by her will be worn.

Randy L. McClave