Thursday, October 28, 2010

Oil & Steel

Image by Shiela Smart


Oil & Steel

My father lived in a dirty-dish mausoleum,
watching a portable black-and-white television,
reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
which he preferred to Modern Fiction.
One by one, his schnauzers died of liver disease,
except the one that guarded his corpse
found holding a tumbler of Bushmills.
"Dead is dead," he would say, an antipreacher.
I took a plaid shirt from the bedroom closet
And some motor oil—my inheritance.
Once I saw him weep in a courtroom—
neglected, needing nursing—this man who never showed
me much affection but gave me a knack
for solitude, which has been mostly useful.

Henri Cole

Posted over on the Writer's Almanac
"Oil & Steel" by Henri Cole from Pierce the Skin

2 comments:

Kathe W. said...

My Dad was just plain horrid...but your Dad wasnt- he just didn't know how to be a Dad

Kathe W. said...

oh- and I am sorry your Dad didn't get the help he needed at the end