Poem for the Last Time We Saw Our Father
by Kathy Key-Tello
We stayed awake until four every morning
that summer we spent in Jamestown. Waited
until fireflies fizzled out & breezes pressed fingers
of trees against double-paned windows—my
sister loved those Degrassi reruns.
It was the fourth night. I brushed my teeth
underneath a flickering bulb & my sister creaked
across floorboards to say a ghost unplugged her
charger. I believed her. We were afraid being
in the middle of nowhere, there were ticks &
chiggers & God knew what else. We killed
the light and crawled shivering into bed & I
heard it. Creaking. I peered at the closed door,
watched it open and Nothing powered up
my camera on the nightstand, pinged buttons
that flicked though pictures. I would not believe
but my sister was there. Nothing looked at evidence
of my life and when finished respectfully turned
the camera off. That dew-frosted morning I rose,
walked across a dusty field to pay respect the empty
barn where our father died.
Kathy Key-Tello is a graduate of the University of Houston undergraduate creative writing program where she received the Provost's Prize for Creative Writing in Prose. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of Glass Mountain, and her work can be found online and in print with Crack the Spine, the tiny journal, and elsewhere. Currently, Kathy lives in Arkansas and she has a beautiful bunny.
