Dad Come Home

Mom woke us up one

hurried day 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 heaps

somewhere in our apartment

 

not here we repeated

knowing yesterday

was payday and if he got

to some hotel and gambled

away his pay no bread for

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 Tavern

 

and me only twelve at the time

left mom at the front desk

no unescorted ladies

allowed and I found him

sitting at the table

bleary-eyed from too many

rounds and lack of sleep

 

the pot of money stacked like

confetti on the table’s center

my urge to grab a handful

of the busy paper and

run instead his mumbled words

chased me out past tables

 

with go-go girls entertaining

customers my eyes

drifting to their pasties

seen in magazines hidden

under my friend Joe’s mattress

 

finally in tears fled drunkenly

into the street mom

crying desperately by my

side losing my innocence in that

boozy gambling go-go place.