Step Nine

Dad calls with the

fan-freaking-tastic Newsflash

he has stopped drinking,

I’ve heard this before

for good.

Isn’t it always?

we should celebrate!

Dad thinks sober chips

and “sorrys”

can buy time lost

all will go back

as if nothing ever happened,

as if we never broke.

But those kids he left

are older now

with calloused hearts

he tries to soften

with his old trick

humor.

I am not amused.

Divorce changes

more than the present,

it changes the past too.

That old portrait,

blue background

the five of us

huddled together

smiling at the command

of the photographer’s

snap snap snap.

Lying through our teeth

to the camera.

Posing as a beautiful family.

That photo

revealed as counterfeit and

shoved

face down

in a drawer somewhere.

The same image of two adults and three children from the poem ‘Plan B,’ now drawn on a piece of wrinkled torn paper. Two adults and three children pose together. From the top going clockwise: A child with shaggy mid-length hair is behind the adults and wears a vertical striped top with a ruffled collar. An adult with short, dark hair with bangs and a mustache wears a long-sleeve collared shirt with sparse polka dots. They hold a toddler that wears a bonnet and short-sleeve dress. The toddler’s hands are clasped in front of them. A person with long hair wears a flowy long-sleeve top and holds a baby in a collared onesie.