Wrapped Around the Thought

I've been asked many times since Sweet William was published, what inspired me to become a writer.  Here is one "what" that is a "who"... my father.

Wrapped Around the Thought

     

See that curl of hair on forehead

under the jaunt of cap,

grinning yes

and leaning into the sun

with a tease of freckles?

Oh, he could write a minute

if you asked him,

could tell you carefully facts

of newsprint and time

with his face somber and his long fingers

wrapped around the thought.

Stories were in him, some fashioned

with laughter, his small quips

sang across the Post on Saturday Evening.

I didn’t know then to be proud.

Ships were always landing in pairs, he wrote,

on the yellow paper that falls apart

and drops pieces of time on the hardwood floor.

I see how it was l932 by an envelope

tucked inside the book called War Aces

with a bill requesting three dollars

for a doctor’s visit.

The address is one that tells me

that he lived before I knew him,

before I was his sweet pea,

he lived this piece of time

without me.

Oh, he could write a minute

if you asked him,

could tell you carefully facts

of newsprint and time

with his face somber and his long fingers

wrapped around the thought.