Ode to Kirk
(April-May, 1984)
You took my hand and we entered the skating
rink dappled with disco lights. You just have
to go side to side, like this. I looked down—
you held me firmly. I felt safer with you
than my own father. You were tall and lanky,
and slept on the couch after visiting
our mother. You had a mustacheand chuckled,
were the between-man, the uneducated
man, sold your furniture so we could press
quarters into Q-bert and Pacman. You
hunted wild rabbit for us—the meat sparse
and gamy. I tasted the metal, rolling
BBs around in my mouth.
…..
This poem is from the chapbook My Mother’s Husbands by Anna Gasaway (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/my-mothers-husbands-by-anna-gasaway/
Anna Abraham Gasaway (She/Her) is an emerging disabled writer published in Frontier, Zone 3, Cream City Review, Poetry International, Anti-Heroin Chic, One Art and others. She received her MFA from SDSU and serves as an editorial assistant for the Los Angeles Review. She can be found on BlueSky: @annagasaway.bsky.social, Twitter/X at @Yawp97 and IG: @annagasaway.
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