Albert Haley

Inside the plain white frame house
with the green shingle roof.
Lying in bed all night
in un-air-conditioned space
while his sun-beaten skin
is swept by flutters
from the antique caged fan.

Each dawn that thin body
resurrects to scrape salty eggs
and bacon from the plate,
then grab a straw hat and roll the tractor
into the field without a bit
of romantic eye glint.

Widowed, 80-year-old paterfamilias
with a will made of rope
and baling wire and 5 long droughts,
2 tornadoes and no secrets
waiting to be unearthed.

By evening his gothic face
is hidden by a feed journal.
“Think I’ll turn in,” he says to me
after hours of deep silence.
“You know where to wash up.
Towel’s on the rack.”

And I’m running water in the sink
with rust stains like the blood
of slaughtered heifers, thinking
how one day he’ll draw a last breath
in a nursing home far from his acreage.

I’ll come back here, hang up
the towel one more time. I’ll lock
the flakey-paint door, and the click
will be the loudest sound this house
has heard in many a year.