L’Dor V’Dor

My father never told me stories about growing up.
I only know he left home at 16. I’m sure that he was
sick of that cramped apartment, where they must have
slept three to a narrow bed, like rolled up socks
crammed in the drawer. I gather these facts as one
might harvest onions in a ploughed-up field,
grabbing hold and pulling till they yield. Anyway,
I know for sure he joined the Airforce, though
he was just 16. Was that after grandmom
threw her second husband out, the only father
he had ever known? I heard my father speak
a dozen times about his fear that he might lose
his job, have to move us all back in with her,
to “double up.” His words. Like someone sucker-
punched, suffering under her reproachful eye.
Who did he remind her of? Perhaps her father.
I didn’t even know his name, just the stories,
mostly tales my mother whispered when we were
alone. She was a stranger to the family, not bound
to keep their secrets. Some families hand down
legacies of great estates, paintings and china.
My father’s family left only taut silence, old
resentments and the twisted chain of DNA.

*

Robbi Nester is a retired college educator who has never stopped teaching in one way or another. She is the author of 5 collections of poetry, the most recent being About to Disappear, an ekphrastic collection that will be published by Shanti Arts. She has also edited 3 anthologies and curates and hosts two monthly poetry readings on Zoom, Verse-Virtual Monthly Reading and Words With You, part of The Poetry Salon Online. Learn more about her work at http://www.robbinester.net.