Before even one joule of sunlight rotted on stucco siding south of Linden Road,
he walked with twelve-gauge and muddy Labrador over wet grassland
where I now park my car. At twilight, the delta breeze still sings through bulrush
like taut horsehair drawn over nickel, a tune close enough to hear but not feel.
My father hums the parts he can remember. And while he uses
a straightened paperclip to scrape grease from his fingernails, he surveys
his hands: made for the oily snap of a pheasant’s neck, made for lifting up
barbed wire to clear space to step through fences. He tells me, Pavement’s a fence
that can’t be lifted. And when he does, I think his eyes might well up
like moonshine—not like the moon shines—like a mason jar filled to the brim.
Erik Wilbur 