Six foot six
Giant of a teddy bear
Well over 200 pounds
Much to my mother’s chagrin.
Came out of the Army
Scarcely 140
Before they married in
The Swiss Alps,
Then he discovered
Marlene’s cooking.
The first time I remembered
My father crying
Was when
I was bouncing across
Lemon-lime colored
Love seats
At nine-years-old
And the phone rang.
Daddy,
In his wild mutton chops
And Steve Allen glasses
Quietly answered.
It was mid-air
When I caught his face
Twist in a knot
Of pain
“Jesus no, dear God, no. Please, not my son.”
A good Catholic man
He rarely took the Lord’s name
In vain.
Splintered downward
Into a thud
Knees empty
Mustard yellow phone cord
Twirled
Around his fisherman
Hand-knitted sweater.
He fell hard
Onto that kitchen tile
Splayed
Like a broken marionette
My brother, Paul, the elder
Crushed
in a car accident.
Second time
Me
Running around the basement
Dad bursts the door open
Screaming in gurgled angst
A death grip on his wrist
Like a muscle tourniquet
“Call your mother,”
He choked out barely
Poor fellow
He was only trying
To get the wet leaves
Out from under our hand mower.
I grab some gas rags for bandaids
Tossing them at him, running
Frightened of my dad’s fear
But nothing could stop
That bloody stump of a finger
From soaking my mom’s
New beige rug.
Third time
Another phone call.
His whole life he had been
The caretaker
The breadwinner
A published engineer
Devotee to sonar submarines
But his love was never work
It was always
Art.
Painting, poetry, books
Foreign movies and those damned gladiolas
He could recite
The Song of Hiawatha by heart
But please don’t get him started.
His weekends,
Always, pure bliss
Pabst Blue Ribbon Sunday
Wearing baggy JC Penney jeans
With cobalt blue paint stains
And a gray-white t-shirt
Sitting in front of his easel
“Putzing About” as mother would say
In his labyrinth underfoot
Acrylic portraits
King Kong posters
And unfinished birdhouses
Awaitied his masculine touch.
Now back to the phone call
Mr. McTaggart
You have won first place
For your landscape
At the Mystic Art Association.
Caught him off guard it did
He looked at Marlene, curiously
Before turbulent tears rained down
Upon soft wrinkled cheeks
Unstoppable.
He was embarrassed
And looked away
Out the window
At the gossiping chickadees
Trying to wipe his face
With that ancient pocket handkerchief
Of his
Years in the basement
His dream validated
This was a big one
Somebody finally took note
It meant
He could at last be called
A true artist.
My father cried.
Laura Stroebel is a published author and poet from Connecticut. She enjoys attending local open poetry mics. Currently, she is working on her second children’s book, which is also poetry. She is married to a writer, works as a middle school math teacher, and has two children in college. In her spare time, she enjoys chess, photography and selling vintage books.