A Gift by Lisa Zaran
It was dark in those mines
where my father worked,
how many feet underground
I don’t know.
He used to come home
with so much soot on his clothes
and in his hair, his fingernails
cut to the nub were still black as night.
I did not know then what my father did
or why his cough woke me up each morning,
nor how it was that a man could spend
ten hours in a shaft while the sun rose
and set without him. It astounds me
to think back on it now, why he wasn’t
miserable because I would have been.
He still brought home gifts,
steelies in every size for my sisters
and I, which we clutched in our palms
like good luck charms, while we pranced
around his recliner, screeching
thank you daddy, thank you daddy,
him smiling, always smiling
as he tried to choke the black
out of his lungs and catch his breath.
Lisa Zaran is an American poet, essayist, occasional interviewer and the author of six collections. Her first book, the sometimes girl, was recently the focus of a year long translation course in Germany. She is the founder and editor of Contemporary American Voices, an online journal of poetry, which has now been approved to be used as the subject of study for a translation course in Germany.
