was the identical summer time he met my mom.
He and Uncle Max, residence from faculty,
labored the household farm, drove cattle
between fields, handed out by a hearth
after buying and selling swigs of Old Grand-Dad
from Max’s flask, the evening sky lit up
like a marquee, “Kashmir” taking part in softly
on their transportable radio. It was 1975.
On off days, he’d drive to Carbondale
and see Dylan or Elton. He grew
his first beard, wore aviators and snap-button
shirts, smashed a copperhead’s cranium
with the heel of his boot. He met her,
buddy of a buddy, on somebody’s entrance porch.
Late July. He pulled a beer from a cooler
and handed it to her. Overhead, carpenter bees
dug into the eaves, dropping just a little wooden mud
that hung within the air, caught on the wind,
briefly softening the view, flippantly obscuring it.
At what level ought to I inform you
my father spent that summer time on the farm,
resigned from his job in Chicago,
as a result of he deserted his first marriage,
washed his palms of a daughter, and hardly
appeared again? And what to do with this?
Knowing my existence relies upon
on these information—the beer, the radio,
my sister—each considered one of them.