The House on Bennet Street
1 Minute Read Time
Four months in, Dad called me onto the porch
where he and two of his buddies were trying to shoot
PBR cans off the banister. Splintering wood
under a Sturgeon Moon, a classification
I had learned in Ms. Eddy’s class.
I used to like when she pointed at the gaping holes
in my shirts and shook her head
until her earrings popped against her cheeks.
Like a squire, my father balanced the cans
on my squared shoulders. Be good, he said
through the end of a cigarette, closing one eye to aim.
The first can skittered off me
like a hubcap from a wreck.
When I say I didn’t cry, I mean it. When he shot
the second can, its pull tab nicked my ear.
Blood fell off my lobe in rubies.
Dad cupped the back of my neck
and grinned at his friends, who screamed
with laughter. By the time the landlord booted us,
we’d been there six months, a record.
Carrying boxes down the stairs, I looked for
my blood beneath the frothing slush. But the wood
was bare. The banister fixed.
A day moon shelled the sky.
Read more from Issue 20.2.
