Twenty One

A Poem

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Illustration created by Midjourney

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Twenty One

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I flourished his cig.—I was just a boy.
Dad slapped me and said, “Bad habits die hard.
Give it to me; it’s not a goddamned toy.”
He took it, he lit it, he turned up his card.
“Twenty one,” he said and drew in the pot.—
“I’m done,” said his pal. Dad shrugged and then coughed.
The next day he hacked up a red mucus clot.
He grinned at the tissue. “What a mess,” he scoffed.

And I didn’t know then dad was already dead;
yet he knew, though he didn’t quite know what to say.
So I laughed when he rubbed his brand-new bald head
and told me he’d shaved it to brighten my day.

One late afternoon he sang a church hymn, 
with grandma and grandpa and teary-eyed mom.
And the hymn sounded somber, 
and the day seemed so grim.
But dad was serene in his chair and so calm.
They woke me that morning before break of day.
“He’s gone,” said the priest. And I heard my mom sing
that same somber hymn from that grim-seeming day,
and she held to her heart dad’s gold wedding ring.

And I didn’t know life could be so unfair.
And I didn’t know death was a permanent thing.
But I knew that dad’s hiding his grief and despair,
was his own way of armoring me for the sting.

When I think of that day when he smiled so calm,
a young withered man in an old withered chair,
and the way he made light of the blood in his cough,
and the way he derided the loss of his hair,
I’m grateful to him for the lesson he taught
of how to bear up when the burden is hard.
He knew I’d soon learn that life was just tough.
“Twenty one,” he had said as he turned up the card.  

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