Portrait / Self-Portrait
       

First facts are dirt. I could hear it
in his voice—that filth, that obvious
unmooring. Startled, my mother
like a bad magician hid her body
behind the jamb. I crept upstairs and saw
her discomfiture, the only look she gave
the beggar I'm here to sketch—
tar-toothed, whiskered, and gaunt
beyond our screen, another consequence
of April. His overcoat splashed
like a flume ride. At five, I hated his eyes
and didn't keep them. What I remember
is wishing he'd walk back down the road
so the thin gravelly sizzle
of tires, that dark sibilance, could thump
him dead. I'm sorry, my mother croaked,
I'm sorry, closing the door. When she flung
it wide, moments later, weeping,
a bag of fresh bread from our cupboard
crinkling in her hands, and bellowed
that we had enough, her shout echoed
for the streetlights. No shoeprints. One car
backing out. This is the portrait I've come
at last to make—the sound of done tears
shuddering. The fact of my relief.

Tweet
Copyright © 2022 Adam Tavel All rights reserved
from The Louisville Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission