Fred Aiken Writing

paternal instincts squeezed into psychosis manifested in the form

of telling my daughter the meaning of the Sicilian defense

and how it relates to staving off other men’s advances later in life,

while she contemplates drawing our dog Snickers in purple crayon

after spending the afternoon playing soccer with her friends,

creating memories that never stay in place

for too long, then stretched out to a brink yet determined

as one crisis spans into the next,

and before it’s too late, I’m regaling the entire family about the ghost of my dead wife

visiting me at night,

yelling out obscenities of how I’m not raising our daughter right

while reminding me I still have laundry to do the next morning;

make sure to not wash the clothes without drying right after

less the clothes get all moldy

and I become the crusty ole dad with a moldy daughter sinking into

the wrong crowd of peers that smoke marijuana and listen to bad pop music

while getting full on processed snacks from the vending machine,

ruining dinner,

and causing my wife to chew me out,

rightfully so,

for not intervening, careening into a daughter destined to not know the Sicilian defense