Disappearing Fathers

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Where do I start with disappearing fathers?

There was mine who disappeared into the bottle,

and then death. There was my children's father,

absent financially, whom they saw once a year

for three days. Then my youngest's, who did

the most thorough disappearing act of all.

I watched them, all my life, the fathers:

washing their cars in the driveway,

coming home at the end of the day

to their normal homes, their normal lives,

the husbands and fathers I had longed for,

who never arrived.

They were a breed undiscovered

and foreign: the ones who stayed.

At writers' group, when we read

the stories of our childhood, I listen

as if to a fairy tale, about summer nights,

fireflies, and happy families.

When I look up from reading my piece,

the faces are appalled, my stories

tales from the Brothers Grimm,

full of disappearing fathers,

strong, exhausted mothers,

and children longing for a Normal

they had never learned to recognize,

and so could never find.

Inspired by Disappearing Fathers by Faith Shearin