Walking with My Dad

(I don't want to post anything erotic yet. Not as a tentative guest. So something I wrote for a contest once. The image to be inspired by was of a father and son in old poor tattered clothes. Thanks so much. I'm excited to meet other people who love writing too. Any suggestions are more than welcome.)

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maybe my father was a good but lonely man 
when my mother died he was all I had 
and I was all there was left of his world 

he grew so sad after her death 
that he couldn’t work anymore 
just sat in his sofa chair all day 
squinting at sunlight 
as if the formations of clouds 
might lend him answers 
to questions he didn't know 

but he’d always summon just enough strength 
to smile at me in the morning 
it never met his eyes 
but I knew he loved me 
because his tired will made sure  
I ate my apple and brushed my teeth 

he'd always loved his morning coffee and cigarette 
but he gave them up to buy me  
fresh milk for school 

when my pants were full of holes 
he used to take patches of his own 
to cover them up 

my shoes were always new and shined 
while his made him look like a hobo 
a man who came from a native world
who could not speak the language 

the children would make fun of us 
my father would stare sheepishly at the ground 
I could feel his burning shame 
palpable in the crisp autumn air 

he'd try to talk to me 
of baseball and a boy's world 
I wouldn't say anything 
biting back tears that smarted my eyes 

because deep inside I hated him 
his feebleness 
his old-man defeat 

I despised him for his sacrifice 
and for letting my mother die 
even though the cancer had killed her 
and he'd had nothing to fight with 
but the innumerable hours and a creaking chair 

a year later at his funeral 
I placed a can of coffee beans 
and a pack of Marlboro's in his casket 
and thought how I'd had  
the best dad in the world 

now when he squints  
into that impossible sunlight 
he'll know the answers 
pour himself a warm cup of joe 
take a deep, soul-filling drag 
of the knowledge of a son 
who was wrong 
and who loved him so much