A Marriage as Artifact
Tanner Lee
Now my father sleeps 1200 miles north in a single room
in Salt Lake. Ziplock bags of bunched socks
as pillows. He’s wrapped in a moving blanket
to protect corners. He sleeps past noon with a Patriot’s cap
tilted over his face. A disassembled motorcycle with old parts
on the carpet. Search these scraps for heart-grease and blood.
He wants touch. Hot breath. A sugar shack. His wife back.
Her peppered hair. The years of his sons. The papers signed.
He wants back the gutted husk of a night alone
with a coworker after six drinks
he told me the day I visited.
His cracked cabinet filled with vitamins.
T-pills and olive jars. An old bat against the back door.
Sermons on the fridge. Choose a life of light.
I know little of love’s dour look.
Tanner Lee lives in Ogden, Utah. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Hobart, West Trade Review, Weber: The Contemporary West, The Comstock Review, and Entropy Mag. Find him on twitter @heytannerlee