my brother does this thing where he siphons the stories from someone. Usually old people because they have the best stories
I drive through the old homestead – the fog of my emotions
Have of my memories
My father does this thing where he holds his little hands at his waist, twisting them inside one another
We are three generations eating dominoes pizza
Defined by death and divorce – not there and not existing yet My grandfather is 90. He is stories made flesh and my brother pulls at them like a rope from a,
Well,
Because he has discovered the census data for Ham Lake from 1940
My grandfather tells stories of the missing generation
His father – can’t work because he’s a welfare brat
His mother died young
Stepmother an angel – gave him socks when his father was crying because they cut him off
My father – tells underbreath mumbles of lost arguments and lost respect – he gives me socks for Christmas
Father drank a lot. You get to pick who I’m talking about. Maybe alcoholism skips a generation. If so I fear for my children.
Grandpa joined the navy. His father got a job – everyday worked it through sickness and in health – a marriage of money and mind because the paycheck meant freedom and freedom meant everything
He finds his dad at work – navy uniform coated in the expectations of his brothers.
“So you went and did it.”
The story kind of trails off there, the way old people stories do. Kind of like young person poems
I helped my dad set up the TV we got him for Christmas
Because he never used the guitar center gift card from last year.