SAINT JULIAN PRESS


David Watts ~ Poet

FATHER, SON AND DISHES IN THE SINK

 
“Would you help your father
unload the dishwasher,” she says
and Gabriel turns his feet
from the strong magnet
pulling him to the sanctity
of his room where his parallel
universe lives and he will descend
into the unreachable. 
He stretches a hand and lifts 
a spoon to its place 
among the community of spoons 
in the drawer.
I squeeze five plates together
to move to the cabinet.
He does the same. I reach
for the mixing bowl and our fingers
touch and my father 
is in the spaces between us,
humming his tone deaf tune
as he tilts a glass into
its perfect slip. I have watched
him turn the glass just so
among the elders standing
like sentries on the shelf.
And now my son watches me
imitating the reflection of my father
down through the generations.
Two of us working and
the dishes disappear three times
as fast and he is gone 
to his world that pulls him gently
away. It’s fine.
He carries with him my father 
and me
and more I will never know.

KATY  BRIDGE
David Watts © 2023

Publication Date: November 18, 2023
Paperback:  $18.00
Publisher: ‎ Saint Julian Press, Inc.
Language: ‎ English
Paperback:  86 pages
ISBN-13:  978-1-955194-22-8


​If you would like to review the book, contact Ron Starbuck or David Watts, for a PDF Advance Copy.

POETRY & PRESS RELEASE

Poem One

Poem Two

Poem Three

Poem Four
​
Press Release

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 Email: ronstarbuck@saintjulianpress.com * Web: www.saintjulianpress.com