These Spring Sundays

These Spring Sundays

By: Husam (Sam) Salman

My father use to get up early on Sundays
He was the start of my habits in putting everything away,

then with his over worked back he cleaned every surface
My mother beside him, this labor in weekends memories made
of vacuums sucking louder than the TV .

If anything, when he did this, we resented him.

It'd jar me awake, my heart in my throat from fright

Forcing me to spill out of bed onto the floor to escape.

When dinner was ready, he'd be the first seated,
We moved more slowly,

and would rise from the TV heads unturned,

He was allowed the only laugh and crass raising of a cheek.
Lamenting the fearful unrelieved anger of that host,

All spoke softly to him, laugh free so not to upset…further.

He, who had taken us from total obliteration
Brought us from Ur to Canaan then here to New Babylon
I was childish, rebellious, what little I knew, what did I know
of love's unyielding limits and lonely avenues?