Each rectangular plot at the trailer park on U.S. 1
was lined with palm trunks slowly disintegrating
into the sandy ground but bristly still at their rounded surface.
I went barefoot always, knew to step over them
but once at a run didn’t and a spine slid into my big toe.
After examining how deep that splinter burrowed,
Daddy got a razor, needle, alcohol, said
with a searching look, “this is going to hurt”
and because I was ten going on eleven and adored him,
admired the silence with which he bore the pain
of his leg that decades later would be amputated piece by piece,
because it was what he wanted from me, I braced myself,
went to a place I didn’t know I owned,
never flinched or cried while he cut a short seam
into the toe and fished that pulpy plant matter out.
It might have been one of the last times I reached
past my own feelings to please him, one of the last
before I lost myself in the many mirrors of adolescence,
before I found myself in books, multiplying the places I owned
until worlds upon worlds rolled between us,
realms this man who could not read could not reach.
Daddy and me, 1948
Oh, Pat, wow and wow! Thank you for taking me away so completely. Your dear toe, your brave father, and your beautiful word-refuge. As my dad would say, this poem is a gem!!
Thank you, Jenny-Lynn. I have been working on this poem for months, off and on, trying to make it true.
What a gorgeous piece, Pat! So lean and powerful in its storytelling! Thanks for this gift!
I really enjoyed reading this. Thank you!
Thanks, Barbara!
Beautiful, Pat.
Oh, Pat. This one goes straight to my heart, bringing memories of my father, my reflections in those dizzying “mirrors of adolescence.” Well done!
Bob, thanks!
Love this one Pat. Very poignant and made me think of my daddy.
Beautiful
Thank you, Pat, what a fine and beautiful poem.
Pat, this is an amazing portrait of you both—father and daughter—and that pivotal moment of trust and devotion. And the music of it wooed me into saying it aloud from the get go: the mark of a true poem…. Thanks so much!
Joe, coming from you, this means a great deal. Thanks!
Reading it was like finding an old postcard (from your antedeluvian self). Perfect.
Thanks, Carson!