DADDY’S GIRL
I wanted to run away
with my mother.
She and I could date
around, compare (love)
notes, and always
have each other.
But she and my father
stayed together.
I grew up, went to college,
got married. Since her death
we’ve grown apart. The world
has changed yet part of me
is stuck at 26, the age
I was when I lost her.
I monitored my female body
for mother’s ailments: glaucoma,
arthritis, metastatic tumors,
but I got instead his bad skin
and silent reflux, his work anxiety,
things of his I’d once blamed
on alcohol and cigarettes
that I eschewed.
My father lived another 18 years.
One time with relatives, we looked
at each other and knew we’d both
had enough of the chatter.
and fled like adolescents.
With my rival and nemesis
I had more in common
than I knew, but why
was I surprised?
We had
the same
great love.
*
Julie Benesh (juliebenesh.com) authored the chapbook ABOUT TIME from Cathexis Northwest Press. She published work in Tin House, Crab Orchard Review, Florida Review, Another Chicago Magazine, New World Writing, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program and recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Grant and her full-length poetry collection, INITIAL CONDITIONS, is forthcoming from Saddle Road Press.