Fathers
Like fathers,
he wasn’t around much
but let’s call that the 70s.
When divorces took off.
so did dad. To Mexico
often enough, or at other times,
a hardened bar in Phoenix, Arizona.
Once he had
drunken heat stroke
and we carried him to
the tub and ran to
neighbor’s homes asking for ice
to cover him like a cloak
so he would live. He did.
My whole childhood was his emergency.
He did okay though. I’m alright.
I’m also him. I have his voice.
And his eyes, blue as
the sea, blue as long goodbyes.
Wreck
As the car hit the rock wall, all
I heard was the laugh of the kids
the way they do from the belly
and the full throated sound
of your beauty as I spun and
struck the stones and did not die.
Depression
I'm watching a man eat dirt in The Grapes of Wrath.
I get that.
The wrath,
the dirt.
I get that all too well.
My spirit's in '29 and I never got better.
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