The Sand Hill Review               http://www.sandhillreview.org 2009

My Little Father

In the stained brownish photo

he squats on the sidewalk

not two years out of diapers,

elbows out, forearms resting on his thighs.

He wears a round-collared shirt and shorts,

the toes of his ankle-high leather shoes

are scuffed, one knee scraped

above the long thick sock.

Did someone pose him there

or catch him in the moment?

Was this one last extravagance,

the ten by thirteen print,

before the Depression took everything?

I recognize his high wide forehead.

But this is a softer mouth than the one I knew.

Is he squinting into the sun

or does sorrow already weigh on his brow?

Is it crying that has puffed the skin

under his eyes?

I can see him in the small crowded kitchen

of the second-floor flat, bent over

his thin potato soup while he watches his drunk

daddy turn sloppy and sad, smells

the breath gone sour as rotting fruit.

How did the fuming man whose blind

hand flew across my face

emerge from this child

in the picture that hangs in my bedroom?

I wish I could lay my palm on his fair hair.

The stones in my chest crumble.

Pat Zylius