A Rare Sighting of My Father

It might as well be a picture of Bigfoot

You, standing on a track of heavy machinery, 
Suffering work interrupted to pose

In a sun-struck Polaroid.

That steel wool beard,

Your engineer’s cap

Casting a bar of shadow across your eyes 
As you claim the machine in the way 
Cowboys in the old photos once
Touched the necks of their horses.

What kind of man am I,
Me, the pb & j savant,

The lunch sack love note poet,  

Who saves for Christmas and scurries 
Between little league and volleyball--
The boy has the flu,

The girl needs poster board 
For a school project
Due tomorrow.

My hands will never be as calloused, 

My skin never so wind scorched,

My scars will always just be scars 
Without stories, but I have your build,

Your blue eyes of appraisal,

Your hard-set heels,

Your spinning compass.

In another photo it could be me

Standing on heavy machinery,

Squinting into a low slung sun,

Bracing myself against the cold of the plain

Before returning to the heat of the engine,

And a smoldering cigarette,

To gouge out oil field trenches

Shoving rock and muddy prairie aside

Until it was time to return to company lodging,

Maybe to pray over a bowl of canned soup

While the wind rocked the trailer to sleep,

To drink a beer while sifting through radio static

To occasionally think of you, my son, and wonder

What you’d made of your life.