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Breakfast With My Father
by Shoshauna Shy

I enter the Pancake House
for breakfast with my father
and realize how rare to find
those words nestled together
for fathers board early subway trains
after a shave at pre-dawn mirrors,
coffee thermos balanced
on a suitcase beside them,
blueprints and spreadsheets
across commuting laps.
Or they’re gone to the back forty
long before the school bus comes,
muddy boots missing
from their place on linoleum.
And some of us hear those two words
then recall a simple dread
of the paperboy’s approach
that sliced between two bowls
or we hear a woman sobbing
in the presence of an empty chair.
So, I’m aware what I have here
is a luxury, a privilege:
Mine is still alive, and I
am old enough to appreciate that,
grown enough to realize not everyone has
    (nor would they want)
breakfast with their father.







 


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