Elegy for the Unsaid by Christopher Linforth

You uber back from the library unsure
whether to confess to your girlfriend
that your father has died or to say nothing
& pretend it was another day of research
on your family tree. She barely looks up
from her new book on the Anthropocene,
& so you flip on Bravo, wanting the angry
noise of reality TV. & your girlfriend smacks
her book against your shoulder, says fuck,
dude, you’re part of the problem.
You want to tell her about the death
of your father, a man you haven’t seen
in years, & say no, he was the problem.
This is why I’m like this. & she’ll put down
her book & hold you for a while.
But you say nothing & mute the TV
& watch men and women argue in some
other place.

Christopher Linforth is the author of three story collections, The Distortions (Orison Books, 2022), winner of the 2020 Orison Books Fiction Prize, Directory (Otis Books/Seismicity Editions, 2020), and When You Find Us We Will Be Gone (Lamar University Press, 2014).