My Father

The Door slams. He is home.

My mother scurries to

get his dinner on the table,

after eight hours at her own job.

We are quiet, chew without taste or sound

lest we disturb his tenuous weather.

He refills his drink again, Thunderbird or

Ripple. Night after night we guage the

barometer, ready for the blow.

When my father died at 42 of cirrhosis, 

I was glad to be rid of him.

Fourty years later, I still feel his landfall,

now tempered with a realization.

My father, no matter who he was,

always

brought his paycheck home to us

at the end of every week. 

Previously published in