"Life Jacket" by John Dorroh

Your father passed into thin air

two years ago today, left you treading

in salt water and frost.

It was before the fuses detonated

on pumpkins strewn like melancholy

babies in a rutted field.

I saw the lump in your throat, on

your chest, coached you into swallowing

some solid food.

Your father never left important places.

Waits for you to ask him what you need.

He will give it up.

John Dorroh still plays in the dirt. When he travels, he examines the soil for evidence of life. "Buttons, chunks of colored glass, bones, bows, bones.....all quality," he says. Three of his poems were nominated for Best of the Net. Hundreds of others have appeared in fine journals such as Feral, River Heron, Pif, Pinyon, and Loch Raven Review. He had two chapbooks published in 2022.