Father of Mine

I’ll soon forget it: what
is there I have not forgot?
—James Schuyler

My father phones (he’s not one to text)
to ask about last summer’s expedition
to our ancestor’s grave—William Whitney,
he says, but I know he means another relative,
the preacher on his mother’s side.
“Ninety miles through rice fields we drove.
Do you remember?” he asks. And his voice
lies down quiet in the unknowing,
just shallow breathing almost snoring.

And I remember a high school night in May,
hurtling home past curfew. Shoeless I snuck
past the den where he reclined, his bushy head
pushed to the paneled wall, his workday
done and filed. At rest against the sirens
of Mash on tv, his chest floated up and down
with the same gentle heave-ho as now,
welcome sounds when I double-tap off—
perhaps too quickly— but I’ll never say
the name was Padgett, Dad. The grave
was Padgett, father of mine.

Dave Malone holds degrees from Ottawa University and Indiana State University. He is a poet and screenwriter who lives in the Missouri Ozarks, and his most recent poetry book is Bypass (Aldrich Press, 2023). He can be found online at davemalone.net or on Instagram @dave.malone.