Aubry Threlkeld

untitled

For a month I avoided my father
he called I called he called he called
he called I called he called he called
he called I called I called he called
 
as we shouted at each other
into the cave from the walk home
from the takeout line from work
during lunch break from joyriding
in the car from 2:00 PM when work
was slow from the Walmart parking lot
 
Our voices commingled filling the cave
with the quiet life with the loneliness
of traumatic childhood with stories
of adultery with the sound of shackles
clanging at the cave’s mouth with the loss
of a father to a heart attack with the loss
of a father to Fox news conspiracy theories
with knowledge that what divides us is growing
and neither of us can stop it