Portrait of a Father

Painting by Artur Vasilevich

Portrait of a Father

My father was a hard man, closed
off from what he could not understand.
One night he tried to pry off the ring
from my mother's hand, she in a coma,
he with a new woman waiting for the bright
glimpse of diamond in the darkened room--
it flashed and mother sighed, moved
as he slipped back through the door.

He walked tall, had big hands, quick
smile--"Could charm the ears off a mule,"
his brother said, knowing him too well.
I remember the smell of smoke and cedar.

Men would follow him anywhere, it was said
they covered for him when he disappeared
into alcoholic odysseys along the Mexican Border,
whores and drunken fights two weeks long.

I remember him smelling of vomit and urine,
barely alive for days, then him striding out
his big shoulders straight, blue eyes
with diamond glints in the hard sun.

Surrounded by dust, roar of Caterpillar
engines, waving his hands, conducting work
into a symphony of labor and the rough road
emerged from violated land, was polished to

smooth asphalt right down to the thin white
stripe that ran on to forever. My father,
moving on, saying little, his green felt hat
scrunched down over his eyes, bent slightly

as if he walked against a stiff wind, the world
always at his back, neck muscles tensed, expectant,
a fighting man Snort Woods said "who couldn't tell
an enemy from a friend, what was his from what was/not

I remember the dust of the desert, the smell
of engine oil. The way his hands held a coyote pup
and how he laughed as the pup struck out, the white
flashing teeth flickering like gems in the dry air.


Keith Wilson