Portrait of My Father’s Glaucoma
My father pushes the menu across
the table, presses me to order
his breakfast. He echoes over-easy
to the waiter, fumbles for ketchup,
creamer. Egg yolks trickle from fork
to jacket. I retrieve his napkin, dab
at the spots. Rising to leave, he clenches
my sleeve. I steer him around potholes,
survey the sky, a worn gray
tarpaulin; blotches mingle, coagulate—
conifers sweep the morning dry.
He edges to the car’s open door.
Wind catches a flock of turkey
vultures—solemn crosses, blur.
Annette Sisson’s poems are published in Valparaiso PR, Birmingham PR, Rust+Moth, Lascaux Review, Cider PR, Glassworks, Aeolian Harp Anthology, and others. Her first book Small Fish in High Branches was published by Glass Lyre (5/22), and she is finishing her second, Winter Sharp with Apples. Her poems have placed in Frontier New Voices, The Fish Anthology, and others; in 2023, two have been nominated for The Pushcart and one for Best of the Net. This poem first appeared in The Shore.