a father can never be strong enough
michael estabrook
over the past 15 years,
to the best of my recollection disregarding,
of course, my hernia operation, I've
been sick in bed
for only one day and my son remembers
that day and reminds me of it
as if all those other days
of going to work and night school, coming
home late, missing weekends, borrowing money,
the doctors the lawyers
the accountants the banks the mortgage,
sitting-up with him when he
was sick or scared, taking him to
the emergency room when he caught his thumb
in the safe, painting the house
and other people's houses,
going to his soccer games and guitar lessons,
gymnastics meets and karate classes,
back-to-school night, mowing,
shoveling snow, fixing cars and broken toys,
playing games and ball and swimming and hiking
and jumping around like a demented baboon
with him and his sisters,
taking apart the toilets to remove
the slippers and weebles and tooth brushes
they flushed down there, replacing
broken windows, doors, tables, chairs, beds, bikes,
fixing flat tires, cleaning-up
vomit and shit, buying them a stupid
dog, and canaries, parakeets, hermit crabs, turtles,
fish, frogs, toads, lizards, snakes,
salamanders and newts,
teaching them to ride bikes and drive cars,
buying them new cars after they
crashed-up the old ones, doing Disney World,
Santa's Stupid Village, Jungle Safari,
Wild West Town, the Petting Zoo, the magicians,
the clowns, the angry neighbors
and bullies, teachers and policemen and firemen,
and all the rest, the being there all
the time and being strong all
the time simply never happened.
