...then this happened

Deeply into southeast Ohio
Step down to Kentucky
His father, married his mother

who gave birth to him.

They made the necessary adjustments.

His mother thought it strange that his father

would read passages of “How To Talk Dirty
and Influence People” every couple of days.

But what was there to do?

His father’s shirts were saturated with paint-

fine aluminum, working the second trick
producing slurry at the dynamite factory. 

If his mother knew better, the toss of an Ohio Blue-Tip

and his father’s an oxidizer of flame.

His mother, a dedicated educator of children
wouldn’t stop grade-school teaching
if the world was ablaze.
Same if it’s Hubby.

The clapboard house was standing
over long abandoned coal mines, echoing
the cries of the firedamp dead.

His parents saw little of one another day to day.

But in the morning, his father saw the wrap
of his fist around the playpen’s fence

as he rose to his feet for the first time.
Substantiated are those who have seen.

The child rises for the first time.

His father had no one to tell at the moment

So he kept his mouth shut about it.


                                 1976 / 2012