Telling My Father

I found him on the porch that morning,
sipping cold coffee, watching a crow
dip down from the power line into the pile
of black bags stuffed in the dumpster
where he pecked and snagged a can tab,
then carried it off, clamped in his beak
like the key to a room only he knew about.
My father turned to me then, taking in
the reek of my smoke, traces of last night’s
eyeliner I decided not to wipe off this time.
Out late was all he said. And then smiled,
rubbing the small of my back through the robe
for a while, before heading inside, letting
the storm door click shut behind him.
Later, when I stepped into the kitchen,
I saw it waiting there on the table—a glass
of orange juice he had poured for me and left
sweating in a patch of sunlight so bright
I couldn’t touch it at first.

From Healing the Divide, (Green Writers Press, 2019). Posted by kind permission of the poet.

Photo by Anshu A.

James Crews

James Crews is the author of the essay collection, Kindness Will Save the World, and editor of several bestselling poetry anthologies: Healing the Divide, The Path to Kindness, How to Love the World, and The Wonder of Small Things. He has been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, People Magazine, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post. He is the author of four prize-winning books of poetry: The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment, and his poems have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, The New Republic, and Prairie Schooner. James lives with his husband on forty rocky acres in the woods of Southern Vermont. For more information, visit: jamescrews.net.

See more content by James Crews →