There’s a hint of white softness in my father’s beard—
in the blown-up digital photo of an otherwise blue sky.
An in-the-moment smile not reflecting all the sun
might have told us. A mind slipping
across the cornfield’s horizon.
Those rows—neatly plowed, seeded and grown
like his ledger books, meticulous.
Entries penned in a cluttered office—receipts saved
in case he distrusts. Everything neat and orderly and
simultaneously out of order.
My father scrubbed dirt from his hands with Lava Soap.
As a child I remember how he would reach into his pocket
for a knife, ply traces of the day from underneath
his fingernails
—an effort to remove tragedy.
His own childhood he would later relive in search of clarity.
Today I look at a Sunbelt Expo photo taken years ago
and notice the fade of Daddy’s denim jacket. His mind, also.
What else is hidden
inside of me?
