No Message (Part 2)
A Month of Poetry (Mask)
My Dad never understood
what it meant to rest on a Saturday.
He would stamp and slam
wooden doors, their glass
plates rattling up the stairs
into our heads.
He would turn the radio on,
turn the television on to the News,
and turn his inability to sit still
on me and my brother.
“We need to get outside while
it’s still daylight. We need to get some good,
fresh air!” he said, with no hint of irony.
Everything was always “good and fresh”
or “nice and neat and clean.”
And there was no rest on the weekends.
No rest for the wicked, no rest for the un-wicked.
There was only him, my Dad,
standing at the bottom of the stairs
in cut-off shorts, black knee-high socks,
white tennis shoes, no shirt, and a
mesh trucker’s cap for the Vietnam War.
Grumbly, groggily, we would wake
and fumble downstairs to melt outside
in the weekend sun. Every weekend.
I haven’t slept well since.
Thanks, Dad.
Thank you.
Thank you for teaching
my little brother and I
the value
of sleeping in on a Saturday.
It’s October and that means that KG is kicking off a month of poetry today. As my good friend Amy Lee said “Remember, the whole point of Poe-tober is not to churn out verse but to immerse ourselves in poetry. What a beautiful endeavor…”
I couldn’t agree more.
If you liked my poem please clap (50 times!), highlight your favorite bits, and comment. Please subscribe to my Medium page if you would like.
Thank you to Growl Publication for hosting this party. Thank you for reading!
