Dead Dad Birthday Album

Dead Dad Birthday Album

You were West Virginia Gomer, framed upon our shelf
gentle and friendly, with just a bit of slack jaw, and Okinawa bound.
Then Phantom of the open hearth, in hardhat, goggles, and steel toe boots,
proud Millrat in prosperous factory times.
Looking a dad-version of Brando’s “Wild One.”
in Naugahyde jacket and biker’s cap,
the quiet observer at my little league game.
Glinting and flailing a six iron, scrub balls pepper
the soybean field that borders our yard.
Old Pugsley* yelps, stocky, stubby and bounding; thinks he’s a retriever,
spends hours hunting those balls.
Blow your harp on a Sunday morn, play a grunt-punctuated polka,
then cook scratch biscuits with home fries,
pause to laugh and dangle Italian sausage like genitalia.
Load of manure for your vegetable jungle, fouling suburbia’s breeze,
but neighbors will later share the abundance.
Prone in bed, black frame bifocals and Zane Grey, then lights out at eight.
White shoes with buckles, even in the 80’s, timeless classics
with mint double knit high rise slacks, boxer waistband higher still,
a trendsetter, who knew?
Feigning anger as Mama* makes endless small talk,
shake a fist when she looks away; send her “to the moon!”
but innocently attentive when she looks your way.

An Old man in a red plaid shirt wants to laugh and go,
But shaky colt legs won’t work, so you ride a four wheeled Iron horse.
Slow and steady I watch you fade, then “thump,” you drop from the race.
Now a ghost dad prowls the walkway by the flowerbed, or practices chip shots out back
when ever I drive up.



* our pug
* my grandmother and his mother-in-law