Poems from the Chapbook,

"The Dead Dance Like Compost"- By Tom Miller

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let me tell you about my father

 

i like to drink

 

lately

i have been drinking

the hard stuff

 

and in the morning

my skin smells of it

 

when i was a boy

my father

 

used to take me to the movies

 

i'm going to

get some popcorn

 

he would say

 

okay

father

 

i'll

be

here

waiting

 

but he wouldn't come back

and i would leave the theater

to look for him

 

go into

the dark smoke of the bar

 

and he was there

martini in hand

 

you

said

you

were

coming

back

 

come

back

 

daddy

please

 

in a minute

in a minute

 

i knew

there was something

wrong with this

 

i cried

for him

 

felt lonely

 

one night

back at home

my father

walked out

to the swimming pool

 

drunk

 

into it

he went

to the bottom

 

i ran outside

looked through

the water at him

 

his face

eyes open

 

he didn't move

 

i ran

to get mom

 

and my brother

 

neither could swim

and they fished him out

with the garden hose

 

she was screaming

 

nathan nathan

 

they took him

to the hospital

 

he was there

six weeks with pneumonia

 

the doctor said

he mustn't drink

 

and he stayed away

from the bottle

 

for a little while

 

in the end

he developed cancer

on his tongue

 

the doctors had to

cut it out

 

my father

the english teacher

 

they said it was the drinking

the diabetes

 

when

like in the theater

he never came back

 

that was that

 

and i will drink tonight

and tomorrow

 

through the rest

of my life

 

not even knowing why

 

and sometimes

i look in a mirror

 

see my father's face

at the bottom of the swimming pool

 

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