Married at Eighteen
a father at twenty mortgaged by twenty-two
my father didn’t have an office
with diplomas certificates news clippings
and I never aw him strangle himself
with a necktie at least not the kind you unknot
at the end of the day I often heard him curse
the grime he couldn’t quite wash off
his hands I heard him snarl
at my mother and at his invisible necktie
which kept getting tighter and tighter I
heard his footsteps the creak of the door
echoed by years of a silence he fathered
a silence split by my mother’s voice calling him
a bastard and by the dirty murmurs of her
other men my father told me I would understand
one day he tried to wash his hands
of all of it all of us
though we clung to his skin like scabs
6 thoughts on "Married at Eighteen"
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“told me I would understand / one day” … as if that makes any of it better. Amazing portrait you’ve drawn, Tom. “we clung to his skin like scabs” is a devastating last line.
Whew! This is a HARD poem, like granite. I agree with Bill on that last line. Very creative. Steve Cope taught me it’s good to have a surprise in a poem, and that could be a positive or a negative surprise — essentially a zinger. That last lineis indded your zinger.
Wow. Thank you for sharing this.
I’ve said it before, Tom: you are really Going There this month. It’s awesome (and a little scary) to watch.
It’s hard to be in that silence and anger. I agree on the last line! Thanks for sharing this, Tom.
The rhythms of this piece belie the nature of it’s content–probing and full of an energy. I appreciate the beat and repetition of:
“echoed by years of a silence he fathered/a silence…”
You continue to ink hard experiences well.
These lines ache:
“one day he tried to wash his hands
of all of it all of us
though we clung to his skin like scabs”