my father as the house where I never lived
by Wendy Dinwiddie
I never lived in my father but I heard there’s a hole in him where he shot a black snake clean in
two with the pistol he keeps on his collarbone. the halves of that snake curled like lit ends.
let me begin again. I never lived in my father but I smoked in his shoe. the soil rich loamed and wormy. the boys shivering wet with lake water.
let me begin again. I never lived in my father but I heard there’s pipe bombs in his hair undetonated and blackberry briars away from the bears and at night the cicadas sing to each other, we are all afraid of the dark.
