For Three Word Wednesday, prompt words iconic, lithe, edgy. Also submitted to dVerse OpenLinkNight. I offer my apologies to both communities for linking when I am not sure how much I'll be around this week to read and comment on others' submissions. Overtime, sick kids, you know how it is sometimes. But this just rushed out of me in response to the 3WW prompt, and it had been so long since my last writing.
Western
Dreams
Dad followed a dream
out west, the iconic west,
to do better for us,
success as sure as the sun
rising. I had my own dreams
of cowboy hats and hitching posts,
of lithe flames of midnight
campfires licking the darkness,
but we lived in a house
much like our old house, and I went
to a school where the cocksure kids still
pointed fingers like blue-steel barrels.
So much the same,
yet the soil smelled different,
even the sun felt different
on the skin, like wearing
a stranger’s shirt, and Dad
grew edgy, hitting me
when the zipper of my winter coat
stuck hard in the fabric, frustration
not directed toward me, per se,
but toward life in general
and I happened to be nearest.
