February 1922: My Father's Conception
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Leona, Ershel—names chalked on someone’s driveway,
names mapping the erasable walls of the heart.
Paired in loopy cursive, they were supposed to fade,
like memory, like the light from the open doorway
of the Elks’ lodge after a Saturday night dance,
couples fanning out across the rutted road.

Certainly, no one was thinking of weddings.
Not Leona, not Ershel. Not the town drunk
who saluted all young lovers, with sincerity
and a bottle from the upriver bridge. Not
the German baker working late, who would one day
offer Ershel a life of ovens and floury hands.

Least of all their Mormon bishop, aged walrus,
snoring now beside his flanneled, pliant wife.
And if it was that night, where did they end up—
Leona’s basement, a barn loft? Or maybe
a bunkhouse closed for the winter, the wind
and the rustling of dusty blankets

shuttering them in, as my grandfather,
sad country boxer, clenched his eyes against
this new pleasure, fevered colors swimming
through his head, while my grandmother
whispered to the wall, if I hurry, if I hurry, 
if I hurry and wash up with vinegar.