Frost Blight 

I try to forget by remembering
my father lived the life of a little boy.
Photographs show black-coffee brows.
Black-coffee waves and chocolate irises
long-lashed and tilted at the outer corners
so his eyes disappeared when he smiled.
At three, he was reading words.
At four, he was correcting sentences.
At six, he memorized all his books
and drove his sisters crazy counting,
editing, dissecting.  The boy was small
for his age.    Shy, he tended to frown.
Four sisters shook the house enough
without a brother coming along
who though no better looking was adored
for his devil-may-care “real boy” ways.
More and more, his siblings shunned
the boy.  For one, he accused his sisters
of  “trying to turn me into a sissy.”
They hadn’t!  They swore!  Where had A.
gotten the notion? Why didn’t. he horse
with other boys?   Those beetle brows.
It wasn’t normal.   I often wonder.
Back then, he and the others helped
wait on the boarders who helped
keep a roomy two-story until job income
rose to the point that the bedrooms
upstairs could be parceled to family.
In time, all the children had rooms
of their own.   Own baths, yet.
But then.  But then.  A series of strangers
came and went.   All men.    The boy
who was in and out,  who fetched
and toted, was pretty as a picture
and smart as a whip.   And an innocent.
The man he became was shut off.
Frigid, cautious, unforgiving.  Muscle
was a frequent subject.  Little women
were to toe the line.  Am I wrong,
or was some evil,  unprincipled boarder --
boarders? -- responsible?   Maybe
the love A. could not give lay bleeding
on the floor of an upstairs bedroom?
A portrait of Daddy in his twenties
shows a man with dark star looks
who would never know what hit him.

           (c)  Phyllis Jean Green