Meet the Father

Sure I trust her

Indeed

I do

It’s the boy I question

Making up worst case scenarios

so that I’ll be ready

–

He pulls in the driveway

gets out of his car smiling

and approaches

swallowing hard

He sticks out his hand

I look down

then

finally

take it

slowly lifting my eyes

back to meet his

applying just enough pressure

so that he knows

damn well

what this girl means to me

–

“Have her back by nine”

I say with a straight face

– it’s 8:34

Everyone laughs

Except me

***

This is the twentieth poem of my personal 30-day poetry challenge to break away from the machine to think about things that don’t matter. I have no idea what I’m doing. – Jim