I Won’t Lie by Jennifer Wheelock
At 3 a.m. Dad wants to pick the strawberries. Outside the season
is wrong, the trees a tangle of twigs against a brain-gray sky. I won’t lie:
If we’re going to speak of strawberries, Mom and I would like him to be
calm, like the man at the roadside stand—the one Dad wandered
into that time he left the house on foot. The man at the roadside stand is measured
when he calls to say Dad is there fumbling the fruit. The man is silent
when we arrive. For months he disappears into his fields of blossoms and buzz,
then shows up with punnets of berries, preserves, chewing tobacco, a lifted chin.
At 5 a.m. Dad wants a gun. He says over and over and over and over
how if only he had a pistol he could shoot himself, himself who is no longer
himself but who is standing beside his own road trying to get back. I won’t lie:
If we could, Mom and I would place the pistol, gently as we’d place
a too-ripe plum, into his hand.
Jennifer Wheelock is a poet and painter living in Los Angeles. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many print and digital journals and anthologies, including Feminine Collective, Post Road, Lake Effect, Flycatcher, Diagram, River Styx, Atlanta Review, and The Inflectionist Review. She works at UCLA.
Hi Jennifer as I read this it seems to infer your Dad is struggling with Alzheimer,s or Dementia perhaps. I felt your sadness, compassion and deep love for your Dad and your Mom. I will pray for you and your family for love and peace in such troubling circumstances. You are stronger than you know. Thank You for being brave enough to share this piece. My first time reading LAR and very first piece I was drawn too.
Thank you for the kind words, Cheryl.
Such courage it took to write that last sentence! I also felt, when my mother was dying of Alzheimer’s, that the most compassionate thing I could have done was to help her go. Which I couldn’t do. I love how you reveal the information in your poem–you let us figure it out. I love the detail of the man at the fruit stand, his silence when you arrive. I know that silence. And then the dispassionate delivery of the information about the gun. Masterfully, heart-breakingly done! I feel connected to you through your poem.
Thanks so much, Kathy!
I had to stop to catch my breath. This poem does the thing that really strong, compelling poems, do: they surprise you. I had no idea I would feel the crush of this, until the very end. The title gives me a tip that there’s something *hidden*. And you *had* me at “…brain-gray sky…”
Such lyricism.
I lost my Dad just a few months ago. Kidney disease. With a dash of Dementia (from the relentless sessions of 5 years of Dialysis) Thank You for this.
Hi Lisa! Thanks for this message.
I can’t believe I stumbled across this! So touching and beautifully said.
Hi Kaye! Thanks!
xxoo
in the moment of the struggle.. yet so elegant. very special..
Thank you, oh talented one.
Oh man, Jennifer, what a gripping, honest piece of work. Wow. I’m breathless.
Thank you, Tresha!