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My father’s wife had some good news.  
She busted out with it one sultry afternoon
    in her living room while I was visiting --
hotter than blazes and humidity drippin’ off her eyelashes,
       her gleeful southern drawl bubbled over
                   like a sizzlin’ *** of gumbo.

“I jess cain’t beleeve it”, she announced out of nowhere.  
“He gave it all to me -- the money.
He gave it all to me!”

Poured it on double-thick I reckon,
       before topping things off
             with that wide-toothed grin of hers.

I was there in that room.
My father, too.
Didn’t know what hit me --
      wasn’t sure anything had hit me …

As for my father … well … his face color
        had drained out all over the carpet.
Mad as a mule chewin’ bumblebees
        at his loud-mouth wife
                 for spillin’ the beans, like she did.

He fancied keepin’ that info chained up
                    like a flea-bit dog --
            not runnin’ around loose in the house!
Sure as heck put a damper on his plans
                   to kick off on the down-low.

My father is not dead – to this day -- but
his three children are dead to him.

She’d been workin’ on him for years.
Finally staked her claim. Climbed up outta
          that mine with a big ole bag of gold.
Uppity woman never had a dime – but sho ‘nuff
           had a nose for one
                   when it came rollin’ by.

I remember the day I met her …
       sittin’ in his car on our drive home from the airport.
Didn’t take her but two ticks to drop that first clue --
blurted some cranky line
        about “blood meanin’ nothin” in a family.

(Her own Pa chased her off at 16
when he couldn’t stop hisself
stubbin’ out cigs on her forearm).

Mighty tough to fathom a version of myself
    who woulda sat tight on a bombshell like that.
Shoulda seen it comin’ – like my brother and sister did.

The deal sealed past a decade now,    
     she wastes no time puttin’ lipstick on a pig --
     her southern charm ditched ages ago … for silence.

As for Dad and me, our computers still talk
      on Christmas and birthdays – not much
             in common, uh huh.
But we both know a missus whose kid and her
        are sittin’ on one thick-*** *** of you know what …
                            Bless her heart.

— The End —