#wintering
my father falls asleep next to me at the car dealership
hunched like a baby in the plastic chair
his skin the olden pages of bibles and war histories
creased and ever-yellowing and tucked away in the garage
behind cases and cases of empty busch light cans
soon to make us fortunes at the bottle deposit
we wait for him to speak in bursts and glimpses
i glance and his hands are blurry and clean
clutching tissues and his own bolting head against the a.c.
while i sting against the salesman’s grinning teeth, reduced:
the tower and his little girl,
stony, eroded
to dirt and rotting pumpkins in the first and final frost
he drives us home and we don’t speak about his paper skin
bulging where oceans have crashed upon it
veins jumbled and blotted and unreadable:
devotionals stacked in the basement warped with seasons and *****
from him i learn to grow
taller, hunching, awkward in autumn-stiffened skin;
i plant tomatoes, peppers, zinnias in the icy creek and wait and wait
and wait for spring shoots
from him i learn to grow little cancers in my throat
emerging like crocuses in the silence of march
Mar 15
Mar 15, 2026 at 3:58 PM UTC