"Three Stories of Two Fathers and One Death" by Daniel Findlay

I.

Our father was a tall man, a gaunt man, would hit like airplane whiskey, in the snowfields of the

heart was supremely treacherous and knowledgeable in all things avalanche. One day up at the

glass cabin we could look past his sunken eyes and see that he no longer knew the cold; he fell ill

that winter.

II.

April is the saddest month. Winter has, again, failed to kill us, and when it cries I cry too. Not

that I wish it had succeeded, but once, we were small and our father was strong. I think he

believes that if he had succeeded, he would still be strong.

III.

Our father, we know, was a boor. He’d sit out on the porch with a slingshot, methodically

knocking down any bird unlucky enough to land in our sycamore. When he died, he left

everything he had to a single sparrow nesting in a freeway overpass. We found it, sick and in

need of cash, as if your father’s will had birthed its own minute atonement.

Daniel Findlay is doing just fine, thanks for asking. He lives in Oregon and writes poetry while his boss isn’t looking. His work can be found in HAD, Stone Circle Review, and Trampoline.