Drift
       

In the desert
they found fossils
of my father
as a young man,
his Converse sneakers
dripping with tar, stacks
of old beer cans
and all of his hair.
One paleontologist
took pictures
of the whole dig team
packed into his wrecked
yellow Mustang,
with the scarred
fender and dented
doors. That was before
he learned to walk
upright and carry
a briefcase. Now his body
is held together
with a necktie
and mortgage,
and his offspring
have scattered
to climates
he cannot survive.
Still, we call him
once in a while
just to hear
his rough voice,
that prehistoric
grumble, like continents
cracking and drifting
apart, carrying some of us
this way, some
of us that.

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Copyright © 2013 Gregory Lawless All rights reserved
from Pleiades
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission