Visiting Elizabeth (ROUND 8)

Let's workshop this poem about a teenager going with his father on a supervised visit to see his sister

scent of the day: Sultan Murad, by Ensar

first wear, need more time

peaty-tannic vibe of decaying wine-barrel wood and tea-soaked parchment I adore and like we get with many vetiver-peat fragrances like Oud Luwak and Fumidus and especially the musty-astringent crocodile wood of Sans Fleurs, where it plays the central role. / it is very peaty and so belongs in a class with the more rummy-vanilla sans fluers and the more tarry-smoky Fumidus and the more spicy-musky Oud Luwak—and, although I’m not sure where it fits in the rank (it is hard to top any of these), I can say say it the most herbal-floral of the bunch (and also the most complex and quality in terms of ingredients) / Ensar Telegrafi’s compositions are as irresistible as they are overpriced.

*Worked all over today. Would love feedback on my complete draft

Visiting Elizabeth

The last time I saw my stepsister Elizabeth—two decades,
more, gone now—was the last my dad, our dad, ever would.
It was up in Poughkeepsie, the same bleak building where
he had once faced me across the table. That day, and under
CPS’s same file-cabinet stare, she was the age I had been. 

Grandpa drove us there. My dad, nicked and AquaVelvaed,
sat half-swallowed by the heft of chronic backseat garbage—
me, jittery too, on his lap. The battle against swollen bags
shifting and spilling, stink braided with Grandma crotch
and yapping yorkie, lent pitiful distraction to our nerves.

My dad said just to drop us at a gas station. “Here’s good,”
he pointed. “Need cigarettes.” But that was only half of it.
The Mazda idled in its junkyard cough as we left the store.
My dad was off beer. And Grandma had those hawk eyes 
pinned on the brown bag—too short—cradled in my arm. 

“Mike!” Grandma shouted as we walked by. “Hey Mike!”
But my dad strode onward, muttering. I followed his lead,
pretending not to hear. “The stuff—the camera!” I jogged
back, Timbs sloshing through slush, for the yellow Kodak
and the coloring book with its built-in bootleg crayons.

My dad cracked the King Cobra mid-stride, gulping swigs
with chin-dribbling desperation: “Aah” like a commercial.
We stopped under an icicle tree. City Hall loomed ahead.
We were late and he looked to me for helping sips. “Dad,
come on! No way. Ain’t going up in there all fucked up!” 

Who could my dad be, his Newport cap new, but himself? 
He bargained. “Hold it for me, then.” My face the answer,
he fought reality. “You got baggy pants, Boy!” But I knew
not to roll into City Hall—after metal detectors, guards—
failing, ghetto as hell, to hold up my gurgling sweatpants.

The plan’s toy-box absurdity, thoughts of how thigh heat
(plus jostling) would flatten the beer’s pulse—something
had him give up. At a park bench he buried it in the snow
like a bone. To the double-take of a passing suit—nailed,
no doubt, by the malt funk—I said, “Gotta keep it cool.”

Guards frisked us for secrets. My gaze grabbed my dad’s.
His broke quick as a twig. Still, I rubbed it in—chuckling.
“See what I mean?” A long elevator of eyes, then a hallway 
whose flicker would wobble anyone, filed us into a room.
Elizabeth, clung to a lady’s hand, edged in along the wall.

A boozy smooch sent her under the table. The caseworker
looked me down in my Wu hoodie, my arctic-camo boonie.
Her head shook as if over the stink, over the whole job—
sighing to her watch. My dad pulled “Liz Bean” to his lap.
I snapped photos while she colored, shooting me flirty eyes.

Grandpa, nose-tubed, idled curbside. The park was a “No.” 
My dad said, eyeing me now, “But I lost my money.” Perhaps 
hoping to fix what he never could, my dad—rustling trash—
changed his tune as we sputtered back to Beacon. “Got it—
other pocket.” For the ride he bought them their Win4.

* “Visiting Elizabeth” originally appeared in Flapperhouse (2016)