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Thursday, October 31, 2013

Poem-A-Day: Like Him by Aaron Smith

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October 31, 2013
Like Him
by Aaron Smith
 
 
I'm almost forty and just understanding my father 
doesn't like me. At thirteen I quit basketball, the next year
refused to hunt, I knew he was disappointed, but never 
thought he didn't have to like me 
to love me. No girls. Never learned 
to drive a stick. Chose the kitchen and mom 
while he went to the woods with friends who had sons 
like he wanted. He tried fishing--a rod and reel 
under the tree one Christmas. Years I tried
talking deeper, acting tougher 
when we were together. Last summer 
I went with him to buy a tractor. 
In case he needs help, Mom said. He didn't look at me 
as he and the sales guy tied the wheels to the trailer, perfect
boy-scout knots. Why do I sometimes wish I could be a man 
who cares about cars and football, who carries a pocketknife 
and needs it? It was January when he screamed: I'm not 
a student, don't talk down to me! I yelled: You're not 
   smart enough
to be one! I learned to fight like his father, like him, like men:
the meanest guy wins, don't ever apologize. 

 

 

Copyright © 2013 by Aaron Smith. Used with permission of the author.

 

About This Poem
"I thought I would be less interested in writing from the perspective of a son about his parents as I approached forty. I'm finding that's all I seem to think about. This older speaker seems more aware of (and more willing to talk about) the tricky spaces that exist between fathers and sons. It's also a poem about the expectations of men in culture and what failing to live up to those mean."

--Aaron Smith
Most Recent Book by Smith


(University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012)
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem-A-Day
Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the Poem-A-Day Archive.  

Aaron Smith is the author of two books of poems, including Appetite (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012). He is assistant professor of creative writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 


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