Today I Am Thinking Of My Father Poem by Wanda Swim Strunk

The sky is overcast and dreary
The temperature dropped 40 degrees
Like grey lint it's come to invade my lungs
I cant breathe and begin to cough

Today I am thinking of my father

I see a life worn drunk at the local diner
Giving the dirty eye to the foreign owners
While he smokes his cigarette
Ponytail, pock marked skin, dirty sweats

I am thinking of a man who might have been

I am sitting at a bar with endless chatter
I am silent except for my mindfull clamor
I drink in the words but register none
I drink to make others more interesting

I think of the cast off shell of someone gone

I am soaking in the bathtub
The water so hot I am red where it touches
Like the skin of a swatted bottom
My head bobbing barely above water

Tonight I am thinking of my father