“My step father grew up in Warrington, he joined the British Army. A way out. Northern Ireland. He married my mother. In Bletchley, we went to the swimming pool. Hot chocolate, in the plastic cup, from the machine. I’ll give you a pound if you go down the slide he said. In London, in the homeless hostel, a sip from his beer. Play Your Cards Right on the telly. Twisting his moustache and flexing his biceps, playing Mormon hypnotism, on Mondays, in Milton Keynes. In America, wilderness survival. Black powder rifles and shotguns. Then, snowed in. In the sleeping bag, hypothermia. Awkward bonding. I do not know how to hammer. When I worked construction, I could not find the stud. I am not a man. I am not a woman. Yet here we are. Father and son.”

From The Autobiography of Don Whiskers. My novel in progress. This except, “On Fathers,” published at European Review of Poetry, Books, and Culture.

You can read it over here:

http://www.versopolis.com/column/609/on-fathers