he was a crew-cut farmer with a red neck and big arms

he drove a 1963 fire engine red pontiac convertible

and he was my mother's newest flame

when winter came he was still around

but he was not interested in hockey

and this made the whole idea harder to deal with

 

that first spring he bought me a baseball glove

and tried to show me how catch and throw

but it was a lesson i could not master

on weekends we would pile into the big red car

and head out to his family farm

where his twin brother and wife would scorn my mother

and the two children that were not his own

the farm boys would drive the tractor

and i'd have to follow along

out into the field which were nothing like the city

and i could not understand

there was no sense to the sun shining hot

and all this long dry grass we had to throw around

sunday dinner would take forever

and no spoke or watched tv

after dinner we would pile back into the car

and head to the city with the top pulled up

it always seemed an endless distance

and i could never stay awake

 

when they were married

i was not allowed to attend the ceremony

the thinking being that a twelve year old boy

would be entirely out of place at his mother's wedding

so i cried while the rice flew and my mother came home

with my new father

the red convertible was gone, replaced by a family type grey ford

that sat in the lane beside our house

and sometime it was a fine thing to see

when i came home from school

but one of the problems was that with a new father

there was confusion about what to do with the old one

he would show up just often enough with some small present

or a new sports car and a pretty girl on his arm

the redneck never said a word and the years passed

 

we went out to the family farm

fewer and fewer times every year

and that was all right by me

and mother got sick and had to go away

i was lent out to a neighbour

it was hockey season

and still he did not understand

i needed a new stick

bobby hull had just invented the curve

and it was what every boy wanted

when i went home on my way to the game

there was a new stick waiting

with just a hint of a curve

it was wrapped in white tape

and that was the first i knew

of my father

 

time being the ever-present master

we grew older and a little wiser

and when i finally left home

it was the knowing that i had a home to leave

that made the leaving easy

 

now years later

i long for the hot days of summer

and an afternoon of haying

the drone of the big red tractor

and the sunburnt shoulders of the big man

throwing one bale after another

his large hands like a winnowing fan

the chafe in the whipping wind

 

 

Copyright© michael dennis/Pulp Press Book Publishers

 

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