Grandfather Poetry

 Two poems about my papa.

Da’ Gon’ It

It’s kind of like the sound of 

a rusted wrench

clanking and clattering 

onto a painted plywood floor

when you’re already five feet up

on the ladder,

and you broke your

ankle last week 

climbing down the same ladder

and you wonder if the

spiral twirling

around your bone

could instead

become a fractal.

It’s sort of similar to the vibrations of

a big toe

charging into the doorframe 

and bouncing off

the greenish plaster.

Similar to 

the throbs of red and white pain

sending waves 

from under the bleeding nail 

and echoing throughout the hall,

and then 

the thrumming of a voice

hissing from braced teeth

dancing with it.

My Papa, The Delinquent 

The same man

who now

cannot stand

temperatures below 75,

who now refuses

to stop 

too close to a car

in bad neighborhoods,

who now

lives off of a pension

with a larger than average

two story house

and one acre of land

and a swimming pool he doesn’t use

because he doesn’t know

how to do anything

but sink,

once told me a story

about how when he was younger

he threw glass milk cartons

at his teacher

for fun

when he lived

on the East Side,

and when they bursted, 

he told me

he saw his future

in the lacteous glisten 

dressing the red, pounding skin

of a very angry woman.

A future with a wife

and two kids

and a larger than average

two story house

with a pool he doesn’t use

but a one acre yard that he does,

a future with a pension

and whole milk

in cardboard cartons.

but,

until he got there,

until he could no longer stand the cold,

he’d continue the delinquency

of speeding away from a cop who pulled him over,

or being chased around the dinner table by his father,

or going 90 down a 45 country road.