Salmon swim into the

I’m a memory of yours without grace
I’m sorry I didn’t make you feel safe

folding and fold-
ing, I am 

turning old
poems

into birds–

their wings mal-
formed, they be-

come paper 
boats instead

Happy Father’s Day, Dad.
Saturday’s poem du jour was too harsh, unfair even 
Given our family tree was rooted in alcoholism, 
Your  own father’s dysfunction poisoning future limbs.

You vowed to be different, signed up before the draft, 
fell in love on a barstool while on leave in a German pub.
This petite, dark eyed Aussie, part time barmaid in a German pub,
served you dark lager while worming her way into your heart, and then you had to go. 
Later, your phone calls got through.
You told her you got your orders as she said she was pregnant.
You could have abandoned her then, but you didn’t. 

You married her, set her up in your country and
Fought like hell in another country so you could get back to her. 
You did things none would know for decades, 
Until alcohol unloosed your tongue to reveal the nightmares 
decaying you from the inside out. 

Had your rock not crumbled,  you would have overcome
but she didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t
Her own illness contaminating body, mind, and spirit, 
swallowing up any hope left,  your alcoholic rages sucking 
the last gasps of oxygen of a great love affair. 

You could have given up on us though, but you didn’t.  
Men didn’t raise kids back then, women did. 
You thought about it, thought about hurling off the 
Warren Avenue Bridge, but you stayed for us. 
You did what was required and then some. 

Because of you, I am here today, more like you than I want to admit. 
I talk like you, 
I work like you,
persevere like you.  
Life has done its damndest to destroy me, too, Dad, 
But I survive, like you. 
So Thank you, Dad. 
Happy Father’s Day.

I can make things disappear
Keys in hand
I turned around and they were gone
They disappeared without a trace

Text a friend
Phone in hand
I look down it’s nowhere to be found

One moment it’s here
The next it disappeared into thin air

If only I could make things reappear

Then I’d be a magician

So small on the full bed, he naps 
on a cool cotton sheet 
after a sticky morning 
of peeking into empty rain spouts and
testing his hands with the number 
of pebbles they can hold 
I tiptoe in to note
his tummy rise and fall
today I write quickly
or else have no poem at all

I tire when
I see my Ex & #3
at all the family to-dos:

but my adult-
children love seeing us together 
in the same room.

Slate fingers stretch
from the wooded hillside.
Misshapen, worn, eroded
by time and runoff; cracked
by gravity and spillage.  

Splintered shale records
the geologic timeline
of a beggar’s feast of elements,
water fire air and wood
for oblivion’s hunger.  

In hollowed coves
beneath the cupped hands—
mossy, damp, & cool,
Pill bugs welcome the showers.

The Bookmobile for People Down on Baker’s Branch
(folk lore from Blue Licks, March 1, ‘97)

Does anyone still remember
long-legged Cecile driving out

from Limestone?  The three little Stitt
kids in raincoats, old lady Martin

looking for her “Simple Jess.”
Does anyone beleive

the sky turned to river and
made a fish of Tomas Beck

who never read the alphabet
but liked to read Cecile,

you cannot escape the fact
that Tomas got doubtful Cecile

right where he wanted:
parked up under the covered 

bridge, dry as kindling twigs.
The kids got their Seuss, Ms. Stitt

her “Tales from the Marrying Stone”,
still the drench came on and brought

the water to the bottom of the bridge
so they couldn’t see the difference 

of the river and the land, when
a pause in the deluge brought

Reverend Estep down in his Ford 
for a special order parchment

of Luther and his friends,
the kids and Ms. Stitt piled in the back

and rode to Bucktown to warm
their feet at the country store.

It may have been predestination 
or just everything rising that made it happen

but in that mobile boxcar of books
Tomas was in the driver’s seat

not going anywhere, lost in
the sea of Cecile’s brimming eyes

when a cloud burst once more
let loose a torrent like God’s

tears coming down for our sins.
Does anyone still remember

how that old bookmobile rose
like Noah’s ark and floated

in the Licking, bobbing around
the floatsom to land safely

in the flooded bottoms along
Piqua Flats?  Five miles in all,

Reverend called it a flat-out miracle.
But the real miracle was how

long-legged Cecile of Limestone
pulled Tomas from the sludge

and piggy-backed him out
all the way to the Brumagen place.