where to fit

a free verse poem

---

floorboard behind my father’s seat
Steak ’n Shake clinging to his window’s edge
as the forty-year-old cars rumble by slow

under the blanket-covered kitchen table
wooden blocks organized into city mazes
where grown-up episodes play out past midnight

between the bushes and bricks of our segregated home
sneak-smoking in the February winds
while the tv blares prime time for hollow laughter

trunk of the sagging Riviera
in the neighborhood behind the drive-in
trusting to be released by devils when the coast is clear

rented tuxedo for a matrimonial Saturday
blurred into memory, pin-mounted in photos
arranged in the hierarchical manner on church steps

fatherhood i had no right entertaining
crying at her birth for all the gone reasons
unable to grow into the folded hand-me-downs

Thank you for reading.