COME HOME DAD poem
By Richard L. Provencher
- 2559 reads
Come Home Dad
Mom woke us up one
hurried morning in 1954
was your father here
last night she dared ask
since arriving from
her waitress midnight shift
guess not we discovered
checking each room
since dad’s battle with the
bottle often dumped
him into various clumps
somewhere in our apartment.
Not here mom we repeated
knowing yesterday
was payday and if he got
to some hotel and gambled
away his pay there would
be little food on
the table for a awhile
and we headed out to
favourite places where he
was welcome until the money
ran out then realizing
one spot left in town had to
be the Sports Taverne
and me only twelve at the time.
Left mom at the front desk
no unescorted ladies
allowed and I found him
sitting at a table
in one of the back rooms
bleary-eyed from too many
rounds and lack of sleep
the pot of money stacked like
confetti on the table’s centre
my urge to grab a handful
of the busy paper and
run instead his mumbled words
of anger chased me out
past tables with
go-go girls entertaining
my eyes drifting to pasties
seen in magazines
hidden under my friend Joe’s
mattress at home.
Finally in tears I fled drunkenly
into the street mom
crying desperately by
my side losing my innocence in
that boozy gambling go-go
place of long ago .
© 2008 Richard L. Provencher
All Rights Reserved
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new Richard L Prov hi' very
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I'm not sure that I ever
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