Poems for My Father

Hello, this is a poem about my father when he was in his twenties, supporting his first sons, a pair of twins. He used to work as a dishwasher earlier in his life. The "Red Haired Boy" is a reference to my father.

Father of Dishwasher Poetry

There is a smell of time in the air tonight.

A crooked smile and thoughts of Pablo Neruda

electrify the air, making it stand suddenly still.

The Red Haired Boy is up to his elbows in dish soap,

fingers pruned from hours of work

but his mind alive, exploring

the decadent halls of verse.

His heart aches when he thinks too much,

for he sees (in these halls)

his mother, whose cigarette-perfumed breath chokes him with love

his father, who died with his middle finger erect

like a bitter salute

the scars of reluctant sobriety wrapped in his other hand

his first sons, whom he would give to the world

intelligent and abandoned,

Abraham's offerings to a new life.

The Red Haired Boy cranes his neck towards poetry

like a flower on the bottom of the forest floor,

fanning its white petals

in a desperate prayer for leftover sunlight.