Warming Trend
Anthony Frame
North of Dayton, along I-75, my father’s
‘85 truck sheds rust as he drives me home
to transfer to The University of Toledo.
I tell him my home can’t be crowded
by republicans without abandoned factories
but he knows the dean thinks I’m flunking
because of drugs. The AC blasting despite
September’s clouds, my father’s face
is marble as he turns on sports radio.
Last game at Old Tiger Stadium, he says,
stretching the O so far I think it might snap
and bring back our sixty mile an hour silence,
a silence I can’t figure out. After all, he’s not
my grandfather, showering after a day’s work,
muscles caressed by wrenches and tire irons,
lips spouting conservative politics. No,
this is my father with his corner office
and his biology degree. He still remembers
a thing or two about academia, but he changes
the station, torques the dial to right-wing radio
and tells me he likes to yell at the host, it helps
prevent road rage. His smile half-cocked,
his eyes focused on the lumber truck ahead of us,
he rubs the lip where his mustache used to be.
I want to ask why he shaved but I see this is a game
we’re playing, that old children’s game, hot-cold,
and neither of us is sure what we’re searching for.
I ask who he gave his Tigers ticket to but he says
my mom took care of it. I’ve had my fill
of doubts about evolution and global warming
so I switch to NPR and turn up a symphony
by Leon Kirchner. Bullshit! my father spits
like a seed and shifts the dial to an oldies show,
“At the Hops.” He stares out the window
so I can’t see his eyes and I wonder if he knows
mom told me he lost his job, that his best friend
committed suicide, how his sleepless tears
wake her each night. My father, a last minute
victim of the 90’s tech bubble. He breathes
something about studying but I barely hear him
over “I Heard it Through the Grapevine.” He looks
ahead at the road again, his face cold as carbon.
I’m freezing, biting my fingernails, waiting for signs
of Findlay where I know the radio will turn
to a gray static. I know someday my father
will die. I’ll be asked to give his eulogy.
Our failure today will be one more parasite
stuck in my intestines. His shaved upper lip
points away from my stringy beard. His eyes
can’t see through my beat-poet sunglasses.
The heat saturates his truck. Unbearably.
North of Dayton, along I-75, my father’s
‘85 truck sheds rust as he drives me home
to transfer to The University of Toledo.
I tell him my home can’t be crowded
by republicans without abandoned factories
but he knows the dean thinks I’m flunking
because of drugs. The AC blasting despite
September’s clouds, my father’s face
is marble as he turns on sports radio.
Last game at Old Tiger Stadium, he says,
stretching the O so far I think it might snap
and bring back our sixty mile an hour silence,
a silence I can’t figure out. After all, he’s not
my grandfather, showering after a day’s work,
muscles caressed by wrenches and tire irons,
lips spouting conservative politics. No,
this is my father with his corner office
and his biology degree. He still remembers
a thing or two about academia, but he changes
the station, torques the dial to right-wing radio
and tells me he likes to yell at the host, it helps
prevent road rage. His smile half-cocked,
his eyes focused on the lumber truck ahead of us,
he rubs the lip where his mustache used to be.
I want to ask why he shaved but I see this is a game
we’re playing, that old children’s game, hot-cold,
and neither of us is sure what we’re searching for.
I ask who he gave his Tigers ticket to but he says
my mom took care of it. I’ve had my fill
of doubts about evolution and global warming
so I switch to NPR and turn up a symphony
by Leon Kirchner. Bullshit! my father spits
like a seed and shifts the dial to an oldies show,
“At the Hops.” He stares out the window
so I can’t see his eyes and I wonder if he knows
mom told me he lost his job, that his best friend
committed suicide, how his sleepless tears
wake her each night. My father, a last minute
victim of the 90’s tech bubble. He breathes
something about studying but I barely hear him
over “I Heard it Through the Grapevine.” He looks
ahead at the road again, his face cold as carbon.
I’m freezing, biting my fingernails, waiting for signs
of Findlay where I know the radio will turn
to a gray static. I know someday my father
will die. I’ll be asked to give his eulogy.
Our failure today will be one more parasite
stuck in my intestines. His shaved upper lip
points away from my stringy beard. His eyes
can’t see through my beat-poet sunglasses.
The heat saturates his truck. Unbearably.