For the Bible Tells Me So<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On the tape with his voice on it,
\nyour father is asking if you think
\nyour mother\u2019s legs are pretty.<\/p>\n
You were five, you didn\u2019t know
\nwhat makes a leg pretty,
\nhow it should curve out<\/p>\n
and then taper down to the ankle,
\nhow one should cross over the other,
\nthe skirt slide up.<\/p>\n
He laughs when you don\u2019t answer
\nthe way adults do.<\/p>\n
I can hear your breath on the tape,
\nI can see you in the living room
\nwith the gilt-framed faces of people<\/p>\n
named Ludrick and Vida,
\nthe turquoise chairs and the Zenith tv,
\nyour mother with her eyebrows<\/p>\n
drawn on and her dresses belted,
\nyour father with his microphone
\nand innuendo.<\/p>\n
You and your brother
\nwear robes over your cuffed pajamas,
\nyou have crewcuts and long, thin bones.<\/p>\n
This is the America
\nyou were born into, where lines
\nwere marker-thick<\/p>\n
between Cowboy and Indian,
\nyour mother and your father,
\neven you and your brother<\/p>\n
who sings loud into the tape
\nbut you they have to threaten
\nwith going to bed early<\/p>\n
if you won\u2019t do it
\nso your voice comes at us mad
\nacross the forty years\u2014<\/p>\n
Jesus loves me, this I know, This is your father, dead so long All those years, your mom dusted him made of pink Depression glass.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n “For the Bible Tells Me So” previously appeared in The Florida Review.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Laura Read<\/a> has published poems in a variety of journals, most recently in Rattle, The Mississippi Review, <\/em>and The Bellingham Review.<\/a><\/em> Her chapbook, The Chewbacca on Hollywood Boulevard Reminds Me of You, <\/a><\/em>was the 2010 winner of the Floating Bridge Chapbook Award, <\/a>and her collection, Instructions for My Mother\u2019s Funeral, <\/em><\/a>was the 2011 winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry and will be published this fall by the University of Pittsburgh Press. She lives in Spokane, WA with her husband Brad and their two sons, Benjamin and Matthew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the Bible Tells Me So On the tape with his voice on it, your father is asking if you think your mother\u2019s legs are pretty. You were five, you didn\u2019t know what makes a leg pretty, how it … Continue reading
\nfor the Bible tells me so.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nyou don\u2019t remember his voice
\neven when you hear it.<\/p>\n
\nlike that empty vase
\nshe kept up on the mantle<\/p>\n