about the author
Carla Barger holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has written art reviews for gallery catalogs and her poetry has appeared in Ink: A Literary Journal and in two photography books titled Objet d’Art and Metal. Her poem “Upon My 40th Spring” is forthcoming in Green Hills Literary Lantern. She currently works as a freelance writer and editor in Chicago.
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Dear Little Me
Carla Barger
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It’s true
He was no good father
Throwing stern and strap
Down the dusty corridors of
The long barn while
The horses hazed the air
With hoof and feed dust
Smudging the light
Streaming from the fields
Turning it the color of filth
And smoke-choke
Like the living room from Sundays lost
When he again became son
Stern and strap lifting and landing
Still and weekly and always
Breaking fresh that broken man
Shoulders rounded and receded
Tall grass bending under
Perpetual winter frost.
In the buzzing heat of the loft
Boards blistered and broke
Under the rusty chains
Of the hay trolley
A frizz of child’s hair reached out
From around the tiny trembles
As if prospecting for an escape
Even then
There was no choice.
He was no good father
That father of his.