In that house of bookish females...

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Illiterate Progenitor


by Mary Karr


My father lived so far from the page

the only mail he got was marked Occupant.

The century had cored him with its war, and he paid

bills in person, believed in flesh and the family plan.



In that house of bookish females, his glasses slid on

for fishing lures and carburetor work,

the obits, my report cards, the scores.

He was otherwise undiluted by the written word.



At a card table, his tales could entrance a ring of guys

till each Timex paused against each pulse,

and they’d stare like schoolboys even as he wiped

from the center the green bills anted up.



Come home. I’m lonely, he wrote in undulating script. I’d left

to scale each distant library’s marble steps like Everest

till I was deaf to the wordlessness

he was mired in, which drink made permanent.



He took his smoke unfiltered, milk unskimmed.

He liked his steaks marbled, fatback on mustard greens,

onions eaten like apples, split turnips dipped

into rock salt, hot-pepper vinegar on black beans.


[Thanks to Henry for sharing this]

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