and slowly I would rise and dress
fearing the chronic angers of that house
Robert Hayden

Well into adulthood I remember my mother
would walk with me in the pre-dawn
grade school days, bundled against cold,
and with each other, against my father.
We crept like criminals through the house
into sparsely lamplit streets where,
out of earshot, we could talk about him,
alone in bed unbothered in sleep, or
earlier up, off to his own refuge from us:
the work that kept us fed, and him, in habit.

We talked about his drinking years ago—
Betty Ford Clinics before I was born, and
gambling debt; desperate and angry, my mother
hid away from him his pistol, dumped
the crudely stashed bags of mini-bottles,
and went alone to beg the bookies
for time to work it out—we talked about
the time since (if she suspected he was
drinking, she kept it from me): how terrible
he was to be around; how sullen he’d become.

We leant into each other’s different needs,
though more alike than ever: to be known
and loved, to try and understand a man
too tangled in himself to spare a word
of kindness to a son or wife, to make it through
another day of work or school, to find
a safe way to encounter him at home.
I remember in place of stern maternal figure,
my mother on those morning walks had
for a time at least become a help, an ear,

a kindness where before I was afraid to show
how vulnerable I knew I was; to share
with her the times I left the house and hid
with neighbors till she’d return to buffer
tensions between my father and me.
We knew entirely then, on those mornings,
the role we played for one another:
secret relief from a bitter, dying man;
a balm to soothe the pained and empty
spaces where affection should have been.

– Joshua Kulseth