Moving Weekend after Robert Hayden | KURT OSTROW

Moving Weekend After Robert Hayden

KURT OSTROW | OXFORD My father drove the U-Haul up I-95 and in the wet-whistled heat, legs worn out from chemotherapy, lifted and loaded boxes of my mostly worthless stuff. It was his birthday.

Sunday morning I woke up achy, congested with a neon mucus. He brought me cold medicine and begged me to stay—to leave the work to him, like so many dishes in the sink or my unmade bed,

but too embarrassed by this regression, I made the drive. After we unloaded all my books and ratty furniture, I passed out on the couch. My father mowed the lawn.

Pal, he said, don’t get old. Then I gave him a houseplant. It sits in the kitchen window.