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[2 poems from Kakalak 2025]
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My 78-Year-Old Father Learns to Play Old Maid
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Everything in the photograph is Christmas red. My father’s
flannel shirt. The rims of the cordial glasses, unpacked
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once a year. My four-year-old’s fingernails. The light
from the last of the tapers, reflected on their skin. She’s leaning in,
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hand forming a small swan’s beak – reaching to pick from the wide fan
of cards in his hand. Once, fathers like mine left early for tall buildings.
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Home late. Whiskey and water and a few minutes to encircle us – clean
pajamas, wet hair – in cigarette smoke on their laps. So little time,
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those fathers, even the good ones like mine. The bicycle-lesson fathers.
The Field Day fathers. Little time for tiny games of patience. For slowly
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matching silly pictures into pairs, heads close. Is that what it is
about my father’s black glasses that catches me here?
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Their stern perch halfway down his nose, as if reading stock report
after news article, year after year. But this night, narrowed to a child’s
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game. As if nothing else matters. As if the whole world hinges
on which card this little girl will choose.
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Paige Gilchrist
from Kakalak 2025, Moonshine Review Press, Harrisburg NC; © 2025
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Sleeping with the Window Open in an Old House
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Funny how the screen keeps the dark
back along with the mosquitos.
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The curtain sheers resemble ghosts
trying to climb out of their night
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gowns. It helps that no one died in
this room. Because of all those stairs
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it took to get up here. They slept
below, where my great aunt sleeps now,
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climbing into her nineties. Sounds
slip through the mesh like gasps for breath.
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The clock ticking on the bedside
table. Who could sleep in this heat?
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Apparently, I do. Morning
slashes through the cool pools of air
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puddled around my feet. My dreams
interrupted by one hundred
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songs from one hundred song birds. Songs
of oranges and lemons. Songs
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of coffee in the kitchen. Songs
from the garden in the yard. Songs
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from my childhood, only deeper,
more tender. Blossoming together.
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Deborah Doolittle
from Kakalak 2025, Moonshine Review Press, Harrisburg NC; © 2025
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Each of these poems captures a moment and holds it up to savor, lyrical, soft and clear as candlelight or morning sun. Each tells an expansive story as well, stretching across generations to bring the years and the people close, to cherish, to illuminate. I discover myself playing Fruits with my granddaughter. I feel this morning’s hubbub of family visitors giving way to a quiet second with Linda beside me.
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From the swirl of confusion that threatens chaos – becoming father to my own father, father again to my grown son moved back home, grandfather to three approaching thresholds of uncertainty – from all that movement and clamor these two poems bring me to a center of stillness. They invite contemplation. They are songs sung in the clearest tenor, and in their melodies I can pause and begin to hear my own song, and hope to understand.
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❀
Paige Gilchrist (Asheville, NC) writes poetry, teaches yoga, and has been published widely, including Amethyst Review, ONE ART, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Heimat Review, Rattle, and Juniper.
Deborah Doolittle (Jacksonville, NC) has lived in many old houses. She is author of Floribunda, No Crazy Notions, That Echo, and Bogbound, and edits BRILLIG: a micro lit mag.
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Additional poems by Deborah Doolittle at Verse and Image:
Sample BRILLIG at Verse and Image:
These poems (and author bios) are from the newest Kakalak anthology of poetry and art, published annually. Voices new and established. Songs of longing, songs of celebration. Purchase Kakalak HERE and consider submitting your own work in 2026.
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