Be Fruitful and Multiply
Newly fascinated with germination,
my 80-year-old father shows patience—
something Mom says he never had at 23
when planting the seed
that would blossom into me.
Using thick and calloused hands
that once warmed the handles of hammers,
wrenches, hacksaws,
Dad carves pineapple leaves from the fruit,
cuts close to the stem,
finds the corona of rust-colored root nodes,
nests them in a bed of potting soil.
Slicing lemons for his bourbon lemonade,
he extracts slippery seeds,
presses them into the peat moss
and composted bark of a planter,
considers how his next heir
might be a lemon tree: trunk strong and firm,
leaves green and smooth,
skin clean and canaried near a citrus
window sunny with southern exposure.
Sometimes It Happens to You
If you’re driving through Alfred,
Dad says, never pick up a hitchhiker
carrying a single bag. Chances are
he was just released from County Jail,
and won’t that be a shit show riding shotgun?
His grease-whorled thumb and forefinger
rotate a glass of Tito’s on the counter.
Turning to my older sister, he adds, a man tries
to talk you into a car, his or yours, no way
you comply. Not under any circumstance.
I don’t care if he’s got a gun to your gut
or a knife sniffing your carotid.
I don’t care if he’s got some bullshit story
about an emergency involving wife
and kids up the road.
Run if you can but scream no matter what—
every ounce you got, y’hear?
Cause you get in that car and he drives off
with you, you’re 97% dead.
Better odds he bolts when you scream,
especially in a parking lot or on a street—
anywhere there’s a chance you’ll be heard.
Under sharp lights, the frost in his Marines
crewcut shines with the same Brylcreem
he’s used since he was fourteen.
And don’t smirk like this will never happen
to you, either. I’m not wasting my breath here!
You need to know how to react
in any situation because shit happens,
and sometimes it happens to you.
I say: Or me. And he tilts the weathered blue
of his eyes my way. Less so to boys, he says,
but who knows anymore in this fucking world.
And swallows two fingers of vodka.
Ken Craft is a Maine poet and author of three collections. His poem "The Pause Between" will appear in the Pushcart Prize XLIX: Best of the Small Presses 2025 Edition.