daddy remixed

Paper trees catch fire, jumping from limb to limb.
He would be ashamed if he knew. What he knew
was addiction, how to avoid it. Platter full of winter
snow but he made damn sure to close off his nose.

No, his vice was ordinary dark wood bars
scuffed and pitted, last call never really
ending anything at all since all of his days
and nights bled into each other, the Independent
in the rain over his head spilling the ink all
over his hands.

But a child made him responsible,
a little girl with a mean red grin that
he barely ever saw working four jobs
and one still at the bar.

Every Sunday morning they ate toasted egg bagels
with butter and enjoyed getting to know each other
all over again because it was the Lord’s Day. When
she was older, she sometimes saw his
twentysomething self peek through those
hazel eyes with the crows feet at the corners.

“You’re never gonna go to college and
make something of yourself. You’re a
fucking failure, eating up my money and
wasting my time.” Sometimes she cried
in her bed at night, muffling her face in her pillow,

wondering if he was right.