Charles Kell

Mother sits on the couch smoking cigarettes.

Father sat every day in the backyard last summer

feeding the robins, shirt off, skin growing darker

as a final July slipped away.

Now I read Malone Dies: Dead world, airless, waterless.

(How he paced the floor in dirty work clothes).

I thought of him rushing to the hospital when I was eight,

trapped for three days having polyps cut from my nose.

The last time I walked in he was gone.

Mother held a mirror under his nose, said let’s just wait.

I closed the lids. Held the back of his head.

Carved with a nail on his right palm: Chevy, GM.

Carved with a nail on his right palm: Chevy, GM.

I closed the lids, held the back of his head;

Mother held a mirror under his nose, said let’s just wait.

The last time I walked in he was gone.

Trapped for three days having polyps cut from my nose,

I thought of him rushing to the hospital when I was eight;

how he paced the floor in dirty work clothes.

Now I read Malone Dies: Dead world, airless, waterless.

As a final July slipped away

feeding the robins, shirt off, skin growing darker,

father sat every day in the backyard last summer.

Mother sits on the couch smoking cigarettes.