my father's drawer in the basement

by Justin Hyde

a few
college psychology textbooks
and some
poorly written essays
with pathetic doodles
in the margins.

the sum total
of his
intellectual life.

i don't have a drawer.

i've got
ten plastic tubs
full of
spiral notebooks:

somewhere
there's a couple pages
about wanting to abort my son
when i first found out
my wife was pregnant,

drafts of poems
about fucking
gutter cunts
in bar restrooms

cheating on
my wife

&

wanting to
sodomize
my
mother in law.

everything my boy needs
to see his old man's
got the heart of a paperclip
and the soul
of a flea.

but there's this too
you little
snooping bastard.

i love you.