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My Father Teaches Me to Shave
Near bedtime, I sit
on the high lip of the tub.
You stand shirtless at the mirror
trimming split ends from a beard
still years from stately gray.
I am not yet five.
My feet don’t reach the floor
but I ask to shave, to be a man,
so you hand me
the can of foam, tell me
I should rub some on my face.
You don’t say the razor has no blade,
but focus sharply as we guide it
through the foam. Afterward,
we marvel at the smoothness
of my cheeks, the astringent
tingle of accomplishment.
You say that I am a man now.
I feel tall enough even to see
over the counter, where we both
reflect in that big mirror.
Red-Tails
Eastern Kansas. Red-tails
perch on posts, like mobsters:
“one boid, two boid.”
From the road,
we marvel at the fat
who have earned it,
who lease sky
to leaner chests, sharper
wings. Hawks know
who’s boss.
The Boxer
For Frank Williams
At the old folks’ home,
I ask Frank what it is he does,
and hands streak the air black
before words are fully there.
I back away. We laugh. Would he
train me? I ask. At length he stands,
leads me to the heavy bag
they’ve given up on asking
to remove from his room.
Frank tells me, keep those hands
up. Tighten those elbows. Peek
across your fingertips
and jab only once ready
to fend off my response.
He shows me how old men
can throw hands quicker
than whippersnappers like me.
Keep ‘em tighter, he says.
Keep ‘em up, ‘cause I’ll
hit you if you let ‘em down.
I take a hit, another. I
keep ‘em up. Move,
Frank says. I move.
I find out nobody messes
with Frank. He’s set
in his methods, he says, has been
for years. He leads me
to the door. Come back
tomorrow, kid, and maybe
if you’ve practiced you’ll get
a hit in. Frank smiles.
No promises, he says.
No promises.
Tyler Sheldon is a graduate student in English at Emporia State University. His poems and articles have appeared or are forthcoming in Thorny Locust, I-70 Review, Coal City Review, The Dos Passos Review, 150 Kansas Poems, and other journals, and are also anthologized in To The Stars Through Difficulties: A Kansas Renga in 150 Voices (a 2013 Kansas Notable Book). Sheldon is an AWP Intro Journals Award nominee, and has been featured on Kansas Public Radio.
