WIN OR LOSE

                                        Then he’s no longer is an observer. He isn’t right,
                                        or wrong. He just wins or loses.
                                             – William Stafford (“My Father: October 1942”)

Like finding our glasses, FINALLY—we expect surety
to be handy, all of our basic certainties camped
on the nightstand, awaiting dawn like good soldiers.

My father pounded his need to be right into the table—
dishes, salt and pepper leaping to his command.
My brother and I studied well as my sister cried and

we all made excuses about the war and government,
except for mother, she never forgot or forgave him
long. I called it passion, but nothing stays the same,

time unravels even the best-knit tapestry, loose threads
in a breeze or bird’s nest, we’re tied to something
in the end. To follow the thread, I need good habits

to augment short-term memory, to balance necessities
like cigarettes and colored lighters that clutter landscapes,
ashes like town dog leavings on short-cropped lawns,

before I leave the house to face the world of men—
to construct a more common sense from the wild
metaphors and similes, just waiting outside the door.