Tag: sons
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The Last Ride
The Last RideThe highway hums beneath us, a silver ribbon unspooling, stretching time, five hours folding into salt and horizon. She sits beside me in the old Chrysler— the Town & Country, once dignified, now a relic of polish fading into nostalgia. The wood paneling still whispers of its golden years, though the lacquer has…
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Reasons
Things are going as planned. My mother died. My father died. I am aliveand bound to fateI recite the mantra to myself: “A father is fate,” drawing the Harrow along my fetid soul, turning over what was planted in me, digging up the weight of his will. But a counterchant arises, the one I will…
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This cannot end with us
I fall back into the comfort of our once existence.every time the other sibs cry out your absence in black texts- how they MISS YOU SO MUCH.And yet, your stories are my memories.In their writing down I am there with you, so much.There with you -mom- in that old faded yellow Chevrolet traveling the black…
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I Inherited My Mother’s Nightmares
My memory is just bones-a clutter of heirloomsin the kitchen junk drawerwhere my mother’s soul is hidden in veils of tarnished tchotchkes.This women who refused to vanish has almost vanished from me,leaving these relics of unclaimed bones,this flatware she so carefully inscribed now rubbing out her initials in the consuming rust. There’s no place settingleft…
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A Small Post Christmas Miracle
He watched his grandma create this wonderful thing stitch by stitch, just for him, in her remaining free time.He was mesmerized by the looping and pulling, the unraveling skeins meldinginto this beautiful blanket of many colors.By November it had started showing flashes of his favorite hues: blue, green, yellow— black stitching separating into squares.He imagined…
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Things Hidden in My Ears
The last hum of mother’s lullaby gently lingers, cradles back and forth, creating equilibrium.Canciones en español,poems in English,birdsongs in the drizzling rain,the faint refrains of all that chooses to linger despite the silence inside.
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the spaces she left behind
they turned brown before you arrived by the time you came on them swiped the dust off turned the pages they were crumbling you never looked at the rest surrendering them to silence you could lie down again now there was nothing between you now the rain was beginning outside or was it just the …
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Mother Are You Proud of Me?
They tore your body apart.You died among walls of infusion boxes.On the television, the Pope riding by in his Pope mobile.Are you proud of mewhen I cry?Are you proud of mewhen I don’t?Peeking through the slats of the living room blinds,I discovered your body slumped in the reclining chair.Will I ever know the truth of…
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Fathers and Sons: Walking the Broken Road
He took his boy along the path to show him all the things he killed.The rifles were left behind, not in the truck, but at home,secure in the gun case.He had his fill of all that.It’s been more than a yearsince he closed the shop and spent his golden momentsorganizing the nuts and bolts,the tools,…
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Epitaph as My Father’s Son
There is no house that is not my father’s.There are no fixed stars,just shaken bits of misery, tiny disasters tethered to hope.From the house he loved,I feel the slap of his inner pain,fist waves hitting the footers.It was easy for him to fight back,(he had to do it to get anywhere)harder for him to forgive…
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Sea-Son
The shells and scales will wash away.He has chosen to be a man.She will watch as the slick of him vanishesno longer swimming but walking away.He has chosen to be a man.In the cold crisp air her throats turns dry.She casts her whale song to the waves,but he can no longer hear it, feel it…
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She Supposes
She supposes a life beyond this wooden bench,this windswept summer day, this clear blue bay with fur seals mewling on the distant rocks.What will her husband, father, kids do if she dies? Nearby, a boy and girl are playing in the sandy grass.Just watching, a father and son, on another bench,we’re talking sports, memories of…
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Taking a Train Ride
An old fashion steam train ride together is the only good way fathers know their young sons and sons their old fathers.
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Childhood 3: Riding Dark Horses Bareback and Barefoot
The boy wants a horse.The dad gets him a horse—a bronco he was told which use to be a thoroughbred,a black wind of a creaturewho barely tolerates the old, cracked saddlefrom the dad’s jockey days.It takes two track hands to hold the reins, to keep the stallion stillwhen the dad addresses him . In the…