The Summer My Father Was a Cowboy

was the same summer he met my mother.
He and Uncle Max, home from college,

worked the family farm, drove cattle
between fields, passed out by a fire

after trading swigs of Old Grand-Dad
from Max’s flask, the night sky lit up

like a marquee, “Kashmir” playing softly
on their portable radio. It was 1975.

On off days, he’d drive to Carbondale
and see Dylan or Elton. He grew

his first beard, wore aviators and snap-button
shirts, smashed a copperhead’s skull

with the heel of his boot. He met her,
friend of a friend, on someone’s front porch.

Late July. He pulled a beer from a cooler
and handed it to her. Overhead, carpenter bees

dug into the eaves, dropping a little wood dust
that hung in the air, caught on the wind,

briefly softening the view, lightly obscuring it.
At what point should I tell you

my father spent that summer on the farm,
resigned from his job in Chicago,

because he abandoned his first marriage,
washed his hands of a daughter, and hardly

looked back? And what to do with this?
Knowing my existence depends

on these facts—the beer, the radio,
my sister—every one of them.