Dead Dad Day! + Sit & Write #107
Greetings, friends!
Today's kind of a big day -- 9 years since my dad died. Honestly, I feel pretty low-key about it this year. Some of that has to do with the passing of time, and some of it has to do with the world around us at this very moment. Between COVID and a number of other global crises, death feels omnipresent, inevitable, and at times, even banal. I suppose that's a little cavalier.
Anyway, I wanted to share a new version of a poem from the chapbook I wrote while grieving my dad.
on the way to breakfast
dad wheels into the dark tunnel
machinery clicks and whirs,
unleashing a flurry of white soap
swirling brushes claw at my door
until it all sheets away
we creep, inch by inch, through the drier
and I watch the droplets of water
dancing up the windshield
the tunnel spits us out
dewy and glittering
in the dry summer air
of this irrigated desert
dad puts the car in park and leaps out
wiping the mirrors and hubcaps
with a fist of pilfered napkins
before the water spots set
after
he takes us kids…