In the poem “Forgiving my Father,” Lucille Clifton uses financial language to depict her transition of despising her father to realizing she no longer wants anything from him. She uses financial language because the concept of being owed something usually brings forth the idea of monetary items. However, her poem has absolutely nothing to do with actual money. It is about being owed love from her father. She hopes to get the love she deserves from a figurative “payday”. She begins this journey by illustrating through word choice how she wants what her father owes her. 

In the first stanza one instance of financial analogy is with her main emphasis on a “payday” that symbolizes her need to receive the love she thinks she deserves from her father. She opens the poem by saying, “all week you have stood in my dreams/like a ghost, asking for more time/but today is payday, payday old man,”(Clifton 3-5). By using the word “payday” she lets the reader know that she is owed something. However, she is not asking for literal money. She is angry with her father for not giving her what she believes every daughter is owed, which is love. She describes her father as a “ghost” because he was not a strong figure in her life. Her ghost father also asks for more time. This represents how he is always making promises to “pay” her if she just gives him more time. However, he never fulfills his promise.  Her repetition of the word “payday” also shows her anger because it seems like all she is focused on is getting what she is owed. By describing how he has “been in her dreams all week”, she describes how she waits and waits for the love that is her “payday” only to be left disappointed. She is very angry at her father for being weak and not providing her with the love he owes her. In the next stanza Lucille Clinton expands on her financial analogy by describing her family’s relationship in the narrative of personal wealth. 

In the second stanza Clifton builds on her financial analogy by describing the financial standing of all the members of her family. She describes how her family has always been poor when she says, “but you were the only son of a needy father/the father of a needy son” (Clifton 12-13). This “need[iness]” has nothing to do with their actual money. “Need[iness]” in this situation simply represents not being there for your family. Therefore Her father never received love from his father. In this statement the speaker realizes her father is part of a cycle of “need[iness]”, and that her father is not given what he is “owed” either. Her father is not given the love or support he needed and therefore did not know how to give it to her. She softens by the end of the stanza by saying “you have already given her all you had” (Clifton 15-16). In this case the “her” is her mother. At this moment Clifton realizes her father has nothing to give to her family since he is never given anything to start with. In the next stanza the analogy continues and she transitions to accepting the situation that she cannot change since there is nothing to “collect”. 

 Clifton’s final stanza finishes the journey she has made from hating her father to realizing she really does not want anything from him. She starts by describing, “you are the pocket that was going to open/and come up empty any Friday” (Clifton 17-18). Therefore his “pockets” stand for what she wants, but she now knows he will never deliver. By saying “any Friday” she comes to terms with his predictable behavior. No matter how many Fridays or “chances” he receives, he will never deliver. He does not have the ability to ever change. Her anger has reached its conclusion when she says, “What am I doing here collecting?/ you lie side by side in debtor’ boxes/and no accounting will open them up” (Clifton 22-23). Her question of why she is “collecting” show her giving in to what she cannot change. She knows she will never receive a “payday” so it is only wasting her time by trying to get one. By saying, “you lie side by side in debtor’s boxes”, she is showing the literal death of her parents. Also by describing them in “debtor’s boxes” she shows that they died in “debt”. This debt is considered the lack of love. By describing that “no accounting will open them up” she shows that no changes can be made. In a financial sense accounting could mean moving around of funds or changes. In a more literal sense she knows that there is no change or “accounting” that can change the past. She comes to terms that she cannot change what happened because her father is dead. It is at this moment that she gives up on her quest to get what she is owed. This journey, as described by Clifton’s financial analogy, takes her from being full of anger towards her father, to realizing and accepting she will never get what she truly deserves. In a sense she forgives him as she allows herself to move on. 

In conclusion, Lucille Clifton uses financial language in her poem “forgiving my father” to show her journey from blind anger to acceptance and forgiveness. In the first stanza, she emphasizes the word “payday” to show she is owed love from her father, and is furious she is not getting that relationship. In the second stanza, she begins to see that her father is a victim of the cycle of not having a father figure. She begins to understand why he has nothing to offer her. By the final stanza, Clifton has come to the conclusion that she has no reason to be “collecting” from her father because he is dead and has nothing to offer. No amount of “accounting” or change could ever change her situation. Lucille Clifton is using financial terms in a situation where the speaker is owed something, but it is not actually money. For her, money stands for love. She will never be repaid this money she is “owed”.