Richard Siken, 2025
Several men were not my father. Some I avoided, some I wanted to impress. In high school, I tried to grow up at a friend’s house. We studied the periodic table and listened to records. Sometimes they bought pizza or fried chicken and everyone was encouraged to eat at the table together. His stepfather always watched me closely. He saw the wariness one learns from being neglected — eating too fast, being overly grateful, always knowing who was in the house: their motivations, moods, and locations. With his stepson he was attentive. With me, on the occasions when our paths crossed privately, he spoke with the gentle unavailability one reserves for creatures that are wounded and backed into a corner. I radiated an inappropriate heat that I did my best to hide. Graciously, he ignored it. He was generous, vain, tall and almost handsome, beamed a certain nonchalance and didn’t slouch in chairs. It registered. On Christmas morning, early, when I knocked on the glass of the kitchen window, he looked up and shook his head, mouthed Not today. I appreciated the clarity. It was his family, not mine.