The Summer My Father Was a Cowboy

This poem was so, so good. I’ve never heard of this author before and I don’t normally read poetry, but I’m going to pick up a copy of his book now.

In case the paywall stops you:

was the same summer he met my mother. He and Uncle Max, home from college,

worked the family farm, drove cattle between fields, passed out by a fire

after trading swigs of Old Grand-Dad from Max’s flask, the night sky lit up

like a marquee, “Kashmir” playing softly on their portable radio. It was 1975.

On off days, he’d drive to Carbondale and see Dylan or Elton. He grew

his first beard, wore aviators and snap-button shirts, smashed a copperhead’s skull

with the heel of his boot. He met her, friend of a friend, on someone’s front porch.

Late July. He pulled a beer from a cooler and handed it to her. Overhead, carpenter bees

dug into the eaves, dropping a little wood dust that hung in the air, caught on the wind,

briefly softening the view, lightly obscuring it. At what point should I tell you

my father spent that summer on the farm, resigned from his job in Chicago,

because he abandoned his first marriage, washed his hands of a daughter, and hardly

looked back? And what to do with this? Knowing my existence depends

on these facts—the beer, the radio, my sister—every one of them.