~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Douglas Cole

The Creation of Fathers

One way, heaps of sawdust, baseball bats,

drive to Eastern Washington to see the lake,

a western myth, an empire of rental houses,

continental drift, drinking around the holidays,

family near then split, the state divide, then this

depart once and for all down evening driveway.

I went chasing after you and even sacrificed

real estate in my soul to give you eyes,

a condition impossible to hold for long,

liberty exploding as if morning were a cannon—

I circle back north to real clouds and here also

folding wind and off again to the mountains,

a disappearing act, air barely holding that shape

I maybe catch a glimpse in the Lincoln rock

heading up the Entiat River toward the homestead,

an almost platonic idea of it shimmering,

touchpoint at Bear Hollow where dry lightning

hits the rocks under the owls in the junipers,

golfers marching the links under smoke—

lifetimes, lifetimes of begetting the mystery

games of campfire and night story, reaching

like Adam even as the God hand slips away.

Douglas Cole has published six poetry collections and the novel The White Field, winner of the American Fiction Award. In addition to the American Fiction Award, his screenplay of The White Field won Best Unproduced Screenplay award in the Elegant Film Festival and was twice selected as a finalist in the New York Metropolitan Screenwriting Contest. He has been nominated six times for a Pushcart and seven times for Best of the Net. His website is https://douglastcole.com