the electric widower

by Justin Hamm

in the weeks after
my mother passes on
the old man contracts
a scorching case
of the lonesome
electric jitters
& takes to pacing
head floorward
feet all atwitter in
a chaplinized shuffle

& then—jesus!—
the energy explodes
& suddenly he's half
his age again
can lose whole days to the
mechanical clank
of hammer on nail
or the static scrape
of the drywall knife
without breaking—
eight to five
eight to seven
seven to nine
turning pits to palaces
for cashfat investors
to flip

i've been staying over
to help him adjust
have been sleeping
on the sofa
& some mornings i wake
to find the back door
half open
the old man's silhouette
outlined in a soft
low voltage crackle
foregrounded against
the cool indigo darkness
orange cigarette tip
flaring & relaxing like
some kind of electronic
warning light

standing in the threshold
he looks as if
he is in between
two important moments
as if he is returning for something
he's nearly forgotten
or else decided to turn his back
& leave it behind
for good

but then again:
with his features obscured
in the halflight
he might well be
something flesh&blood
the stout folk hero
of my first nine years
for instance—
the bike fixer &
jerk beater upper
full of warm blood
& father miracles

so that is what
i let him be—
i recognize the illusion
recognize that energy
could be transient & false
that soon the wounds
of labor & loss
might return
that money again will
spill like liquid
between his gnarled knuckles
that some other
hard luck woman
will run him down
will run out on him
will die on him
& still i decide
as long as the current
still runs through him
there's no harm
in simply letting him be

Originally from the flatlands of central Illinois, Justin Hamm now lives and writes in Missouri. He has an MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cream City Review, NY Quarterly, Spoon River Poetry Review, Red Rock Review, and The Brooklyn Review, among other publications.