The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Adam Hanover

My Father

Not a pig, not "donut munching swine,"

as a teenager once so eloquently oinked to him

while he directed traffic outside a high school.

(At least according to Froissart.)

More like an aging Schwarzenegger.

In summer, a red, horseshoe-shaped halo

ringing his sunburned scalp,

he kneels shirtless by the pine fence

in Terminator pose, preparing an assault

against the eggplant ripened on the vine.

Heavily muscled, his age-freckled arms

fill the small bushel silently,

robotically, terrifyingly.  

Inside, he kisses my mother

as she goes to the cabinet for bread crumbs.