Face Value Poem by Michael Arthur

They're working on a whole lot
of nothing

Daddy used to say

Spitting nails
fake shudders just to be
pleasing to the eye

Put on

for haves gotta have
so fences stay

unmended

wore holes in his trousers
speckles of second coats
decorated his pants legs
like Pollack had a nosebleed

wincing down the stairs
as the fog tired his worry

Pammy told me after mom died
that I was always grown up
long before I was

grownup

Going to kindergarten class
in a G Man trenchcoat and fedora

Briefcase
Cateye glasses
Galoshes

I would run home so fast
not ever even out of breath once
reaching our front door


I took care of them


My mother
My father
The house went to pot

Walk away. Don't go back in there
Said Mr Howden
The neighbor on the corner
for all my life there

Always wore black and blue flannel
Always seemed bto be chopping
wood with that same old axe

Didn't think he liked me much
since I accidentally hit his daughter
Punky with a baseball bat

She'd sit on the driveway in cutoffs
and a string bikini top and lick pixie stick dust off her wrist