genesisSpring2016.pdf


genesis spring 2016     29     

Make sure the envelope matches the card,
my dad sighs with a guttural cough,

to his ear, hands on some chipping gate 
or an eighty gallon water trough. On my mother’s
birthday, like a head butler, I am sent
to the dollar store with a twenty pulled from wadded 
bills that live in an overall front pocket.
I am to scour for the most endearing calligraphy
with processed pinks, titled To My Wife,
something I do not have. I drive in with 
the consolation prize of  McDonald’s won
with the change, thinking of  stale dollar store air, 
and stale McChickens, ranch only. I look 
for some last minute love, printed and sold 
for a dollar and some change, matching envelope 
included. And sometimes I even sign it for him, 
with my block letters of  my botched generation,
clearly an imposter of  his quick, dark slashes 
of  historic cursive made always with ink, 
shaming the water color of  my pencil.
Go ahead and sign it, I got a cow having trouble 
calving. And so I wipe the French fry shine 
from my left hand, but the drag of  my wrist against
the written lead leaves smears that can’t say how
much he wanted that dollar and a half  card to tell
her everything he wished he felt in his powder heart.

With Love, Steve
Sarah Turmail