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I Walked Behind

Dana Stamps, II

Both my dad, and my step-
dad, they did it: walked ten feet ahead of my mother and I,
and even just I. I walked behind.

One odd time, I thought, “He is my Dad,
I’ll go up to him,
you know, see what he’s doing,”
but he pushed me back, denied the unvalued love
I had to give. Stupid kid.

I asked my Mom
(she let me walk beside her) why he was acting like that.
She said, “Oh, he’s just that way.”

I was too young to question
this further for motive, just accepted the boundary
as the way it was for me.
The possibility that it could or should have been different
didn’t even occur to me. I walked behind.

-=-

Gun Raised

Dana Stamps, II

Ever since I can remember, my real dad
said that he was going to give me my first shotgun
from his personal collection
when I was old enough; he had at least twenty rifles
in his gun cabinet in his bedroom.

All I ever got was a bb gun, and a life-
time membership to the NRA. I practiced
on a shooting range that my dad set up near a stream

on his land. I shot soda cans full of holes,
almost never missed. I was a natural, said dad.

One time, a blackbird landed near where the cans
were set up, so without thinking,
I aimed, pulled the trigger, and killed the thing.

Its body, blood trickling down its wings,
made me feel ashamed; I vowed never to kill
for sport again. I was afraid

to tell my father because he was a hunter,
often brought home white-tailed deer, had their heads
with huge antlers mounted on his walls.
I hid the blackbird behind a tree.

-=-

Goldie

Dana Stamps, II

Mother cleaned and polished grandma’s marker
(born in 1919, she lived until I was nearly 15).
She had been dead a year. Other grievers around us
were doing the same, polishing.

When my redheaded grandmother Goldie died,
it wasn’t sudden. A vegetable confined to a hospital,
emphysema got her. She had an oxygen tank

for a few years at home, then the stroke. She smoked
cigarettes, menthol Kools, all my life, till just
before the end – said they didn’t taste good anymore.

At the funeral, she looked porcelain white, and young
in her casket. I have only been to her grave

marker once. Spending the day on Mother’s Day
with my mom, she wanted me to go visit
grandma with her, so we went to

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