Dad was scarecrow stubble,
all jaundiced meandering mumbles.
He didn't look much at people
those last few years,
staring off into space
at scabbed tidbits
of pleasant small talk crippled,
slack jawed all wrong.
Watergate remembrances
of Colgate on the leaking sink
and Terry Jacks on the transistor
drowning out Mom and Dad in a fester
of afternoon numbing,
drunk and drained of the blister
that was morning father shaking
on the living room couch,
dry heaving over Barbara Walters
or sometimes J.P. Patches
but never Captain Kangaroo.
Pops, with his steaming wake up cup
of hair o' the dog that ate him whole,
barking up the pieces
of our fractured family photo album,
burying the remnants
of our torn and frayed lives.
