Today’s choice
Previous poems
Vanessa Napolitano
Pork Chop
I ask my father to dinner, pretending he is still alive,
ask him what he’d like. He says a pork chop which is not
something I know how to cook. Anyway it’s January,
I’m vegetarian today, and it’s raining. You can have curry,
I tell him.
Is Stephen cooking? He asks me-
he never quite trusts my cooking
though finds my lemon meringue pie acceptable.
Yes, I’m not at home till later. Will you please wear your hat? I ask,
I have it in the cupboard. And your shoes, I couldn’t bring myself
to throw them away.
Well I wouldn’t turn up shoeless would I? My father says.
I ask my father to dinner, pretending he is still alive
he will drive in a four-by-four
with cigarette stubs and maps in the door
over the hills from Halifax
forty minutes when the traffic is decent.
Watch out for the ice,
I warn him,
though he’s hardly in danger now.
He looks at me quizzically.
I ask my father to dinner,
pretending he is still alive. He never gets past the front door.
You’re not very good at this game!
He walks off, and goes home,
stopping for fish and chips on the way
hatless, shoeless. Out of sorts.
Vanessa Napolitano is a British American poet published in Poetry Wales (online), Mom Egg Review, and Free Verse Revolution. Her pamphlet Birds and Bruises was published in July (Kelsay Books). Black Cat Poetry Press are publishing her forthcoming pamphlet Various Magics. Instagram @nessanapswrites, X @Moette
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