Sometimes, it comes upon me like a plague 

that my father was young once too. That his  

tender, blushing skin was burned  

by a small-town sun and people asked him  

what he wanted to be when he grew up.  

 

I wonder if he feels like he never  

did and if he sees a shadow of himself in me 

or if he sees nothing at all. What scares him  

more? That I’m nothing of him  

or far too much. I’m twenty-one years young  

and he keeps telling me that I’ll understand  

sunburns when I’m older. 

 

I think of the crispy pages in his yearbook  

that I flipped through last summer to find messages 

from every girl who ever tried to love him and found 

the same thing I know now; that he isn’t much capable 

of loving back even half as hard.  

 

I loved driving around with you last summer, they 

all read. I laughed and asked, “You drove 

a lot of girls around, huh?” and he 

said to me, “There was nothing else to do  

but drive.” 

 

All that settled in him was the opportunity  

to sit at red lights and visit cemeteries  

to plan a plot—put a downpayment  

on a patch of dirt—and figure out what types of  

flowers you liked best; all part of the ten-year  

plan; the only thing in life we all deserve  

is a deathbed. 

 

I like tiger lilies  

but I’ve never seen one  

in real life. It’s all been dandelions  

down South, yellow sun creasing  

the cracks in my dimples and the lines  

on the back of my father’s neck. 

 

You’re so damn cute, the scribblings in the front page 

of the 1983 yearbook said above names like Cindy and 

Susan and Bethany and Brittney and Ashley and—but 

you are a shit head.  

 

My mom grew up in cemeteries in Huntsville,  

while my dad made home in graveyards in Commerce 

and they fell in love  

over Square Dancing and beer bottles  

broken over heads when men fought over pool. I laugh 

every time I hear the story of how they met, imagining 

the time when my dad and my mom were young.  

 

Maybe I’ll understand when I’m older  

what it’s like to fall out of love with someone 

and outgrow the taste of their name and the warmth 

of their touch, hotter  

than the sear of a small-town sunburn.