Orphan Supper, and: Sunday Afternoons with Father

Orphan Supper

Fast-food fried chicken over the sink for the third night in a row.

The dish pile grows.

My mom will never make me soup again, but I keep collecting bones.

I add the femur to her freezer bag of bones.

Sunday Afternoons with Father

He walks through the door in dirty clothes and asks if I know how to smoke crack.

I drink coffee at the breakfast table, hungover. He bounces from foot to foot,

says the rock gets really hot, so does the pipe. I light a cigarette. Stare at the linoleum.

He tells me it’s easy to make a pipe from the glass tubes

of fake roses in gas stations, the bp on the corner sells them cheap.

I flip pages of the TV Guide, attempt apathy. But he’s not giving up:

You have to be careful when you hold the pipe because it gets so hot so fast, you know?

(I know a skilled stillness, the want to slip away.)

I take a drag off my cigarette. He smiles, says it’s not easy, it takes practice.

I nod, ash into an empty can.