“Luckies”

By Reginald Gibbons b. 1947 Reginald Gibbons

The loop of rusty cable incises

its shadow on the stucco wall.

My father smiles shyly and takes

one of my cigarettes, holding it

awkwardly at first, as if it were

a dart, while the yard slowly

swings across the wide sill of daylight.

Then it is a young man’s quick hand

that rises to his lips, he leans against the wall,

his white shirt open at the throat,

where the skin is weathered, and he chats

and daydreams, something he never does.

Smoking his cigarette, he is even

younger than I am, a brother who

begins to guess, amazed, that what

he will do will turn out to be this.

He recalls the house he had

when I was born, leaning against it

now after work, the pale stucco

of memory, 1947.

Baby bottles stand near the sink inside.

The new wire of the telephone, dozing

in a coil, waits for the first call.

The years are smoke.

Source: The Ruined Motel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1981)

Biography

Born and raised in Houston, Reginald Gibbons earned his BA in Spanish and Portuguese from Princeton University, and both his MA in English and creative writing and his PhD in comparative literature from Stanford University.

Gibbons is the author of more than half a dozen collections of poetry, including Sparrow: New and Selected Poems (1997), winner of the Balcones Poetry Prize, and Creatures of a Day (2008), finalist for the . . .

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