EMMANUEL
for my father
Caution steered his voice at 85,
making me aware of men with sirens
looking for strangers along Highway 23
newly descended from a black winter sky
above Columbus at 10:00 PM.
My father’s latest revision of the story
of how his son must not die now,
not before the apple butter’s dark brown hymn,
praises the sunrise over Minford,
not before the bed is pulled down
for the body’s joy, exhausted and bound
more than ever to the mystery of a valley
known for its childhood of frog legs and saints,
and always the glory of a love found here,
called Beauty, Ohio, or any other name
that sounds like God is with us.
Glint Literary Journal 