#5
Sometimes, in conversation
I hear a strange semblance of an accent
floating between my teeth,
lingering on my tongue –
mid-west, or what I think it sounds like
and I want to wash it away
in the shower, or when I brush my teeth
These days, I’d rather
have a Texas accent
than anything else –
and I still laugh
about the fact that I had to travel to Italy
to get one in the first place
//
#4
My father grew up with a machine gun in hand
patrolling the nighttime streets
with the other neighborhood boys
in his provincial town in
protecting everyone from communism
My father is a nonviolent man
and has told that story but once –
it was more of an offhand remembrance
than one of his usual detailed, full-blown tales –
thrown in haphazardly
probably in defense of some characteristic
“Of course I’ve held a gun before
all of us did – machine guns, at night, in the streets –
a protective measure”
But he shrinks from interrogation – “Did you ever fire it?”
I take after my father,
in the sense that we don’t share much with anyone
He and I both harbor a small arsenal of reliable stories
and stick to them loyally
but every once in a while, I catch him saying things
that I’ve never heard before,
and no matter how stealthily I try to bring it out,
I never get to hear those things twice
