43 as we laid on Meemaw’s new white carpet. Poppa, of the Amish Country sharp cheddar cheese and the dried apricots he always called ears, teasing that he’d eat mine next. Of the night he held my hand and ushered me into a new family I yearned to abandon. Of the poem he wrote the Summer of ‘22, teaching me about the Summer of ‘79. Of the smoke that will always linger in his shirts and that Wendy’s where we talked when he knew I was angrier at God than at my own body. The day he told me to live the life she showed me as I lingered at Grandma Pat’s casket. That night he taught me to pray as he clutched at the breath that smoke had replaced for so long. Of the way he always answers my phone calls. Poppa, of the coffee on the front porch that Friday night when I showed him the first thing I ever wrote about him. The third time I saw him cry.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=