father plays the role of human

Samantha Padgett

truth is / he’s amazed by the moon / just like the rest of us / spent summers slingshotting / acorns
into the sky / hoping one would break / through the atmosphere / as a boy / he counted each
crack / in the sidewalk / careful not to break / his mother / recited the pledge of allegiance /
backwards and forwards / a good boy / he probably wanted a dog

four years sober / he stops calling / reads Leaves of Grass / thinks about the time / he told the
daughter / Whitman knows America / like lungs know air / thinks about the time / he told her /
I only married again / so you wouldn’t get anything

drunk he asks / if he can haunt the daughter / once the dust / has settled / once the first of many
/ bugs slip into his coffin / he loves her enough / to be there when / he can’t apologize / for the
absence / for the forgotten birthdays

he knows it’s only a matter / of time before the mice / scuttle out from the walls / to nibble on his
toes / somewhere the daughter dreams / of a funeral / an elegy she’ll google / how to write /
perhaps he’ll write / a letter / tell the story / of the boy / tell the story / of poetry that reminds /
him of wheat fields / poetry like the moon / just out of reach

Samantha Padgett holds an MFA from Sam Houston State University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poet Lore, Cleaver Magazine, New Ohio Review, New American Review, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Austin, TX with her partner and her cat.