jared’s poem

Baby Blue

The kitchen clock says 5:05.

That means that Dad is late.

I know this because the kitchen clock is how I tell time.

My bedroom clock says 5:01, so I know that it’s

…five minus one equals…

Four minutes fast.

Or four minutes slow.

I don’t know which.

I go back upstairs to my room because that’s where my Terminator action figure is.

 

Through my bedroom window I saw Dad’s baby blue

jaguar rip into the skin

of the neighborhood road,

leap with terrific speed

past the somber 10 mph signs

and screech-brake the length of our driveway.

My fast father,

his car the color of sky, reflecting

an incensed orange ball of sun

as if my father were the world,

encased in sky blue car, like Earth

encased in sky blue sky.

But he was also the wind

driving the sky, too.

Sky.

Sky sky sky sky sky.

The best poets are the most self-deprecating ones, I’ve heard.

 

My dad drives very fast and it scares me.

I run down the grey-carpeted stairs and stop at the front door.

The front door is made of a heavy thick brown wood.

I have to pull very hard,

For very long,

To open it.

So I start working on it before my Dad even gets out of his car

Because I don’t want him to see me struggle

Dad sees me out in the open

Doorway and he knows

I haven’t forgotten about the promise,

And he knows

How important it is to keep a promise.

So he comes inside,

But not before making a joke.

I could never make that man laugh.

I think it’s funny when Dad makes jokes

because Dad is very big.

VERY big.

He works out.

It’s also funny

Because Dad is funny.

 

We walked into the family room and knelt

on either side of the coffee table:

solemn suburban monks.

We each moved

piles of magazines from the varnished off-white table’s center,

and littered its corners

with Vanity Fairs and Peoples and Times and Vogues and together,

big hands and little hands,

we placed the board upon the table

and positioned our pieces.

 

I have never beaten Dad in Stratego.

We play chess or Stratego once every week on whatever day I make him promise to.

Sometimes I beat him in chess

But never in Stratego.

And I try very hard

Because Dad says that if I ever beat him,

He’ll buy me a Nintendo game.

 

I have so many Nintendo games.

I have Regular Nintendo and I have Super Nintendo and I have Sega Genesis,

And I have Road Rash and Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario,

And I call them all Nintendo games,

Even though some of them aren’t Nintendo games because they are Sega games

And even though they are all “video games,”

I call them Nintendo games.

I don’t know why.

My mom says that I don’t need anymore Nintendo games

And she says that Dad shouldn’t give me any if I beat him in Stratego

My father is a callow irate child and my mother is a weak submissive neurotic.

But once she came downstairs with me while I played Nintendo,

Because I’m scared to play Nintendo in the basement by myself.

It’s very dark.

I love my mom.

 

Dad takes my One with his Spy and tricks me.

He is very tricky.

“Good game.”

I say that because I am a good sport.

The clock says 6:00.

And I know it’s right:

It’s the kitchen clock.

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