• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

The Poetry Box

  • About
    • Mission
    • What’s in a Name?
    • Meet the Team
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
  • Contests & Awards
    • The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize 2025
    • 2024 Winners
    • 2023 Winners
    • 2022 Winners
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
    • 2019 Winners
    • 2018 Winners
    • Pushcart Nominees
  • Publishing
    • Poetry Books, Chapbooks, & Illustrated Collections
    • Testimonials from Authors
  • The Poeming Pigeon
  • Events
    • The Poetry Box – LIVE
    • Our YouTube Channel
    • All Events / Readings
  • Newsletters
  • Bookstore
    • All Books
    • Overstock Sale
    • Art Prints
  • Cart

On Pompano Beach after My Father’s Funeral by Carolyn Martin

December 1, 2015 by The Poetry Box Leave a Comment

“On Pompano Beach after My Father’s Funeral” by Carolyn Martin, published in The Way a Woman Knows, released February, 2015 by The Poetry Box.

On Pompano Beach after My Father’s Funeral

I’m glad he never knew, my mother says
as we walk the storm-sloped shore, precarious
with angry clouds and wind. My father’s gone
and we’re deflecting grief with talk
deeper than weather in her Florida,
gardens in my Oregon.

She tells me she’s relieved I grew into myself
and never let him know. When all my mates
were feminine, she says she understood
and kept her peace.

Your daughter’s stubborn, bright, successful
on her own. Why bother with a man?

She fed my father facts without excuse.
It worked for years, she tells me now,
and she’s comforted.

I remind her of Sunday afternoons
when we owned the baseball field. He’d pepper
shots to older guys and I’d snag tosses
home, lobbing them so he could strike again.

I tell her how I loved a cowhide’s feel,
my Yankees cap, the smell of leather
in summer heat. And how, at twelve, I toughed
it out when hardballs bruised and stung.
My three sons, he loved to joke
about two boys and me.

Thank God, he never knew, she intervenes
and grabs my arm. The shifting sand unsteadies her.
I stop her almost-fall and tell her how I’m hurt.
Would it have been so bad? my voice on edge.

Her light blue eyes avoid my green. My father,
her best friend, is dead and here we are, slipping
toward that ancient mother/daughter thing
about who owns what’s right.

I hold her while she knocks sand from her shoes
and motions toward the car. But I won’t let
it slide. What if he knew? I press.
Would that have been so hard?

We stop where sidewalk meets the beach,
stubborn in our stance, awkward in our pain.
I’m holding on until her voice unsteadies me.
You’d lose his love, she claims with certainty.

Without remorse, without regret
my mother, his best friend, shatters me
with what I can’t conceive. She pulls away
before my voice can find its words
and stinging winds hit my face.

Share to Social Media:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • More
  • Email
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Filed Under: Pushcart Poems Tagged With: Carolyn Martin

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I accept that my given data and my IP address is sent to a server in the USA only for the purpose of spam prevention through the Akismet program.More information on Akismet and GDPR.

Footer

Gold Logo  

Email:
Shawn@ThePoetryBox.com

Talk/Text:
(530)409-0721

The Poetry Box Newsletter Signup

Calls for Submissions, New Releases, Publishing Opportunities, Readings





CLMP logo
Copyright © 2025 The Poetry Box · Site Designed by Shawn Aveningo Sanders · Powered by Genesis
%d