Don't Leave Hungry: Fifty Years of Southern Poetry Review

My Father's Friends

W. S . D O X E Y My Father’s Friends In those houses of glass My father walked up and down Speaking to them of rain, Of sun, of the distant lands From which he brought them home. In the moisture pools underneath The benches fish made lazy circles. And my father crunched up and down On the damp gravel pathway Sweating through his khakis Speaking in the same patient tone. The orchids never spoke back; But at certain moonstruck intervals They opened up and bloomed. 58 ❚ The 1970s ...