The Days of Our Lives

Dad tends house since he gave up on jobs.

He’s taken to folding

towels into fours, whereas Mom prefers halves.

And he’s cribbed cooking from The Essence of Emeril,

though I’ve caught him red-handed watching Days of Our Lives

and looking down at his hands during ads, or out at James

Street. The traffic. His cigarette smoking itself

in the ashtray and the ash growing longer and longer

till it crashes like the bridge

in that one movie he loves, about a war

he wasn’t in. I love that he wasn’t

ever in a war. The way he stirs cream into his coffee

with a pinkie or pointer. Mornings

for me are for cartoons on volume 14

and standing close to the tv to hear,

and once a week a kerfuffle

between the hot-cold couple in the upstairs apartment—

the Him calling the Her this or that, or the Her calling the Him

a bad word I don’t understand and can’t repeat.

I don’t like it when Bugs Bunny slaps Daffy in the face

with a banana peel, a white glove,

whatever’s around.

At lunch, I don’t always eat

lunch. Only sometimes.

Dad purees a mean baby-carrot soup

that stains your pants if you’re clumsy with a spoon.

I am clumsy with a spoon and he always forgives me.

I want to hug him sometimes, and I don’t.