Fatherland, Etc.

Fury was the weather

in our house. It blistered

the bread and mottled

the cheese with mold,

but we ate and ate

till my mother and father

rounded on each other

— his salary, her weight,

ringing the changes

of resentment all the way

back to their weekend-pass wedding,

when his mother wore black.

The silverware jumped

when he hammered his

fist on the table.

My father was free

with his hands, when it

came to me: punches,

a kick in the ass

if his son was lazy,

stupid, or a poor

listener. So much

needed to be set right:

a Brillo pad rusting

in a puddle of pink,

talking on the phone

when dinner was on

the table, forgetting

to carry the garbage

to the curb or rake up

the dogshit in the yard.

He fished deep into fall,

wearing his GI poncho,

blacks, bluefish, stripers,

fluke, flounder. I

spaded bones and

viscera into

the roses, sleet

rattling the windows.

I don’t know why

he hit me that time,

something I did

or didn’t do fast enough:

He clocked me so hard

on the side of the head

it made my ears ring

and I sat down

on the floor. My mother

was up in his face:

“Do you want to send him

to the hospital again?”

A light-washed yellow room,

my throat burning

worse than when I ate

chilis on a cousin’s dare.

But that was to have

my tonsils out.

My mother

took me by bus.

I think that’s when

I first wanted to kill

my father, or the first

time I let myself

think it. Something

dark and viscous

filled the sudden spaces

between my kidneys

and liver, between

my heart and lungs,

like oily downwind

smoke from a refinery.

Aaron Fischer’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, American Journal of Poetry, Five Points, Hudson Review, and elsewhere. He won the 2020 Prime Number Magazine poetry contest, 2023 Connecticut poetry prize, 2023 Naugatuck River Review poetry prize, and the Maria W. Faust sonnet contest. He was nominated for a 2024 and 2025 Pushcart Prize.