Dream With My Father

Poetry
Written By Joshua Wait

by Marc Darnell

He had an obituary, he did, but he is looking
around the house as if he dropped something.
Three in the morning he creeps by the TV’s
flicker in white Fruit of the Looms– he is
stealthy, and the bathroom battlefield is far.
I wonder if my relatives realize he is alive,
at the funeral more weeping from distant relatives–
my aunt in her yellow outfit came to hug us all.
Even her crying had a southern, mumbled accent.
Was the cancer a lie, wasn’t I listening well?
I remember the violet death blotches on his legs
and the turning up and turning up of the O2 tanks.
It’s been months, years, and I guess we won’t reveal
he’s in the basement with his glorious cigars.

Marc Darnell is an online tutor and lead custodian in Omaha, Nebraska. He has published poems in The Lyric, Rue Scribe, Verse, Skidrow Penthouse, Shot Glass Journal, The Rush, New English Review, The Road Not Taken, and elsewhere. His latest books are Forecast: Increasing Visibility from Kelsay Books and The Mining Muse from Impspired Books. He has 3 times been awarded the Academy of American Poets prize. His newest book is And The World Doesn't Know It Is Weeping (Kelsay Books 2026).

Joshua Wait

Joshua Wait studied English at UC Berkeley. He wrote his undergraduate thesis on the relationship between art and poetry in the New York School. He received a Masters in Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary. He has served in programs for children, youth, and college students, in an organization addressing climate change, and in the tech industry as a CTO. He currently divides his time between his family and his artistic practice.

https://www.bluerivers.org
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The Man Who Gave Himself Away