Southern Fried Weirdness | Southern Speculations

In The Days When Blocks Were For Tires, And The Evenings Chose A Sideways Approach

By Jason L. Huskey

Daddy's spirit sits by his old pickup,
eyes and head drooping to the blocks for tires.
He's trying to remember the days of his youth
when he'd go stealing diesel and kisses
out on Jamerson's farm.

That's all he's got now--
too bold for Christ,
too meek for the fires of hell--
just that damn old truck too stubborn to run.

He's come for me once,
sleet-silk fingertips pulling at my hands,
begging me not to fight no more.
He can't imagine our past the way he can his own,
can't see beyond the clouds of heaven to see our scars.

He forgave me years ago, I suppose,
when the ice and the curve and the cars converged.
I only feigned my love before retreat
like the fool before his wife about to die.

He just sits out there with his baby,
watching her build rust in the nighttime.
Some evenings I start to take him a blanket--
others I prepare my notes to begin the fights again.
Some day I'll invite him in to stay, if only for a minute or two.