who wrote ‘ex libris’ and then my name in every childhood book

who took up jogging once, in between cigarettes, and permitted me to accompany him just once

who swore that this year we’d go to jamaica, the year of noname canned ham and other delights, who brought home brochures and said we could have archery lessons on the beach (!!!)

who took me foraging for empty beer bottles for the return money as though it was a game

who taught me to play crib like my life depended on it

who could wake up instantaneously and with sudden violence if anyone so much as looked at him while he took one of countless naps on the couch and we wondered how he knew

who said hey a buck’s a buck, a dollar has no last name

who spoke in increasingly impenetrable analogies and metaphors and was angry when misunderstood

who did not speak to me if he could help it from the age of 13 until i left home

who said under my roof though it wasn’t his

who said mad i’m not mad, dogs are mad and anyway i’m smiling, this while baring his teeth

who was a vacant lot filled with wildflowers and old garbage

who couldn’t do anything right and so gave up trying early

who claimed that you’ll never have a better bowl of beef barley soup than at a strip bar which i did test once and you know, he wasn’t wrong

who is a mystery i gave up solving

who is my favourite disappointment because it’s so familiar

whose favourite saying is i don’t get excited and it’s true, if he were more casual he’d be horizontal

it’s so familiar. who called himself pater familias and was deadly serious about it.