Six foot six
Giant of a teddy bear
Well over 200 pounds
Much to my mother\u2019s chagrin.
Came out of the Army
Scarcely 140
Before they married in
The Swiss Alps,
Then he discovered
Marlene\u2019s cooking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was mid-air
When I caught his face
Twist in a knot
Of pain
\u201cJesus no, dear God, no. Please, not my son.\u201d
A good Catholic man
He rarely took the Lord\u2019s name
In vain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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
\u201cCall your mother,\u201d
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\u2019s fear
But nothing could stop
That bloody stump of a finger
From soaking my mom\u2019s
New beige rug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Third time
Another phone call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019t 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
\u201cPutzing About\u201d as mother would say
In his labyrinth underfoot
Acrylic portraits
King Kong posters
And unfinished birdhouses
Awaitied his masculine touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now back to the phone call<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. McTaggart
You have won first place
For your landscape
At the Mystic Art Association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My father cried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Six foot sixGiant of a teddy bearWell over 200 poundsMuch to my mother\u2019s chagrin.Came out of the ArmyScarcely 140Before they married inThe Swiss Alps,Then he discoveredMarlene\u2019s cooking. The first time I rememberedMy father cryingWas whenI was bouncing acrossLemon-lime coloredLove seatsAt nine-years-oldAnd the phone rang.Daddy,In his wild mutton chopsAnd Steve Allen glassesQuietly answered. It was mid-airWhen … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-zj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2189"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2191,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189\/revisions\/2191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"