Two Poems by David O’Connell

Starter Home

Before us, others called our house our house.
We know their names, met their grown children.
At the closing, they said mom’s house, dad’s house,

but we were not confused. In one day, our house
was empty, full. If possible, it was more our house

because we thought, these walls should be blue,
not green, and we were right. Later, we returned
with the baby, and then years became these rooms

where she once and the times that we all. Now,
there is our house, and our house, and our house,

so that often when we speak, three doors open
on three rooms where what happened happens
almost as it happened in our house, which we agree

will always be our house, even when it’s theirs.

*

How to Tell the One About Fatherhood

A man and his daughter walk into a drugstore.
That he won’t know best is the twist. The setup
relies on a tacky Grim Reaper, its skull white

as disposable utensils, a plastic black cowl
hiding the wire it hangs from above them.
Explain it’s October and how the decoration,

triggered by their entrance, shimmies and moans
so that the daughter, just four, buries her face
in her palms. Jump then to bedtime: the girl

in tears, afraid of the dark, the man at a loss.
Understand that the story you’re telling
is less joke than trial, that its outcome

will mean one thing to the man and another
to this girl who’ll remember her whole life
what comes next. It’s death, of course,

that upset her, though she doesn’t know one day
she’ll die. As will her father. And the father,
through all his It can’t hurt you, I’d never let…

doesn’t think he’s lying. This is the time now
to pause, leaving space for your listener
to feel for a man who struggles for answers

as he gets in the car and drives his daughter
back to the store in her pajamas. Nearing
the end, take time to sketch the empty aisles,

the long fluorescents humming as if angry
with the night. Take care. Bring them
to this moment cautiously. Not so much

allegory as anecdote. Less anecdote than
ephemera: a father lifting up his child,
saying, trust me, there’s nothing to fear.

*

David O’Connell is the author of Our Best Defense (Červená Barva Press) and the chapbook A Better Way to Fall (The Poet’s Press). His work has appeared in Cincinnati Review, Copper Nickel, New Ohio Review, Ploughshares, and Southern Poetry Review, among other journals. More of his work can be found at davidoconnellpoet.com.