Tuesday poem #559 : Nicholas Molbert : Self Portrait as Saying

 

 

 

The apple doesn’t fall
far from the tree,

doesn’t it?—
as my father loves

to say
about everything

except me
and him, really.

Split him in two
and get blood

-splotched skin
and tubes

of blood thinners.
Get a son

and the remedy.
Get deer hide hung

on tanning hooks
and skin in the game

of raising a boy
who knows how hunting

can signify a man.
Willingness to stay

in a tree stand
for hours, sharing

hours’-worth of silence
and body heat.

Pitch a rifle bullet
makes passing

through air
as opposed to flesh.

Knowledge that the time
between the sound

of a fired bullet
and the thump

of a carcass on brush
is a unit of distance.

 

 

 

 

Born and raised on Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, Nicholas Molbert lives in Los Angeles. He is the author of the chapbooks Goodness Gracious and Cocodrie Elegy, both from Foundlings Press.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan