Life Before Dad

I grew good at

watching my dad butter toast.

When I asked you

if you knew him

there were corvettes

and oh

my father was

so popular

maybe the kind of guy

I wanted to meet

in high school.

 

Car parts swapped

for scraping

crumbs sticking to the plate.

He drank OJ at the sink,

finishing the whole glass right there.

Then we would go to church

and I wondered so much about the man

you knew

before he was my father.