My father was a young man once

My father was a young man once:

high school football, dreams

of college and medicine but it all

changed one day, one fine

October day in 1929,

it all fell apart, shattering, shadows

splintering across the pathways,

disappearing into the reality

of no food on the table. Instead

of tending patients he tended

oil fields, the work was dirty

and smelly but it paid and it

fed four people,

even if he hated it, hated

the dirt and grease and grime

and coarseness and each payday

punctuating dream's end. I wonder

if he ever cried Abba.

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Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.