Tipton Poetry Journal – Spring 2021
They Stole Everything From My Father John McKernan Hoffman Mortuary filched his gold wedding ring His business lawyer with Power of Attorney plucked $87 from his 1926 paper boy savings account The curtains in that room pilfered the tan from his face and arms A shadow robbed his lungs of oxygen A truck towed away his Buick rusting in winter ice They peeled his name from real estate ads in the Omaha World Herald Someone took the arch supports from his shoes Someone else nabbed his shoes and socks A worker in the hospital grabbed his monogrammed handkerchiefs Weeds hijacked the grass from his Cass Street lawn A neighbor took his ladder one midnight His children used the blue prints of the new house he was going to build for scrap paper
John McKernan, who grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, is now a retired comma herder / Phonics Coach after teaching 41 years at Marshall University. He lives now in Florida. His most recent book is a selected poems Resurrection of the Dust. He has published poems in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Journal, Antioch Review, Guernica, Field and many other magazines.
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