Meeting My Father by Greg Watson

I was ten years old when I first met
the man, shaking hands in a shopping mall
parking lot, as my mother looked on,
unimpressed and uncertain as to whether
this was a wise idea for any of us.
He was tall, dressed in a courtroom suit
and tie, saying, "Good afternoon" with
the practiced ease of a natural salesman;
told my mother that I was a good-looking kid,
as if I weren't standing there beside him,
as if he couldn't speak to me directly.
This man I had secretly dreamed of,
who had, by default, become the hero
and villain of all my boyhood tales,
this man who by his absence alone
had all but defined me, seemed to me
in that moment to be unforgivably ordinary.
We had a polite lunch, the three of us,
conversation sporadic and strained.
There was much to avoid, though we were,
all of us, long adept at doing just that.
There were no tears and no explanations.
I sat to his right, at his suggestion,
two left-handed eaters avoiding elbows.
And he was right. We did not touch.
Not that day, or any day yet to come.



Greg Watson's work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. His most recent poetry collection is All the World at Once: New and Selected Poems. He is also co-editor with Richard Broderick of The Road by Heart: Poems of Fatherhood.