It wasn’t what he painted —

an avant garde woman

holding a fish from a string

in one hand, a striped

umbrella in the other,

a woman with a pencil neck

and two circles for breasts

dancing a jig, wolves

with interesting faces

turned, looking at one another.

 

It was that he was,

my father, a shift-worker

for upwards of thirty years,

a work rhythm

shown to whittle grain

from your hide,

and he would paint

on his two days off

during the week

from a job where they sent

the company doctor

if you called in sick

because you might

be cheating Union Oil,

where he was almost

burned to death

in an industrial accident,

an outfit that called me

after his death, and said

he had been sent his

last retirement check

of $350 per month

after his passing

and they wanted it back,

to which I said, fuck you,

he almost fried for you,

and never heard from them.

 

He showed he had talent —

 

bright tempera

on poster board,

Christmas cards painted

on the insides of our bedroom

windows six feet high

for twenty years —

 

that never got much

of a chance to develop

beyond his living room walls.

 

I asked him once

when he was past 75,

if he ever had any training?

He said a few teachers

encouraged him in school,

and he was half-drunk

during most of his work.