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WAITING FOR DADDYA finger of lightwould sneak underneath the door and wake me: I would sit bolt upright and say Daddy, Daddy? I would turn to the door sleepily reaching for you who were never beside me except in heroic dreams of eleven years old, hoping to be the first girl astronaut swinging off into space, her brave, old, constant dad by her side. But you weren't there. The light was flat without you. In the room emptied of you, I felt you in the shadows. They were dense. I could hardly push my fingers through. As usual, you were nowhere, nowhere, nowhere close by. You taught me how not to trust, how not to tell the truth, and to expect the worst whenever possible. I tamped down my hope on Friday nights, whenever you were expected to arrive and did not. It smoldered, burning me, until it flickered out. My mother would serve the stew, lovingly prepared. We ate in silence, forks and spoons dully clanking on china, the radio muttering off-center in the background. After my mother's chop suey, iceberg lettuce with a touch of German vinegar, I would fill my cheeks with M&M's, I would eat them and hear the voices of the different colors: green, purple, orange. As I chewed them hurriedly, I thought I could walk past your vacant place without changing expression. M&M's did that for me |
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Issue #19, March, 2001 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.