My Father Plays a Song Only He Knows
Eliot Taber
He gets high hums low leans forward twisting
his shoulder blades into a shape I cannot quite
recognize he presses into the keys like the ignition
foot on the pedal slamming on the gas the
soft engine of his body curling towards the
sound beaten with small collapses of breath
Where are you trying to go? I want to ask but I
know I can’t pull the song out of him & into
me because there are places I cannot enter &
languages I cannot speak. Mom is angry because
so often he forgets to come to bed & she finds him
in the morning still playing himself into dawn
his shoulder blades into a shape I cannot quite
recognize he presses into the keys like the ignition
foot on the pedal slamming on the gas the
soft engine of his body curling towards the
sound beaten with small collapses of breath
Where are you trying to go? I want to ask but I
know I can’t pull the song out of him & into
me because there are places I cannot enter &
languages I cannot speak. Mom is angry because
so often he forgets to come to bed & she finds him
in the morning still playing himself into dawn
Eliot (SC '28) is a writer from Brooklyn. She likes cats and other things too.