Tiger Heron

And So Forth

27 And So Forth In the last years of his life, my father concluded every sentence and so forth. Three-syllable glaze, the phrase purveyed the sweet aftertaste of icing, a hopeful sufficiency. I went to the doctor and so forth. I pictured him coming about, a sail tightening to the wind in a graceful arc, the whole boat of him forthwith gliding. Never one for details, he’d body forth with his spasm of sonants—and so forth— shellacking particulars. No solvent loosened names or dates, and my mother died before she chose laziness or cognitive loss. No matter. Let others blather on with unnecessary hype; my father made do with his small class of words. Conjunctions fortified him, lent him congress and congregation, as in I had lunch with the boys and so forth, to which I, blabbermouth daughter, amend a buoyancy of pastrami and coleslaw. ...