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  • Mechanical Dad
  • Wendy Neale Merry (bio)

Mechanical Dad rolled out of the shed and loving him wasn’t that tough a transition. I made room on the couch for his generators, got used to the circling of factory pigeons. Even learned to tell time by his machine-pounding heart. I could move Dad from Wednesday to Friday, add wheels. Some days he’d offer to make me a sandwich, his talons poked holes in the bread but it became a better, latticed bread and the tomatoes shined through like Swiss glass. Dad had skills, could work any saber or orbital tool. On a full moon he’d remove his gem eyes, shine them like space marbles. We’d make a night of that. Mechanical Dad was always reserved, until you wheeled him out front by the hedges and neighbors. Then he’d really get going about Carver. Dad had an aptitude for dirt, the levels and tensions. But we think he got that from my mother. Mom was unmechanical, eventually quivered, cold-stopped. That’s really when Mechanical Dad and I got close, once we saw the smoke and lilac she was all about. [End Page 16]

Wendy Neale Merry

Wendy Neale Merry is a poet and essayist from San Diego. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the Raleigh Review, Spork, Nano Fiction, decomP, Hobart, and others. She lives in downtown Manhattan with her family, where she manages a collective of street artists. Read more of her work at wendymerry.com.

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