by Allison Renner
A Genetic Imperfection
I saw him in a dream last night, my father standing
beside a murky river, looking up into the orange sky,
waiting for the tumor to split wide open and spread into
his pockets, his muddled song, his aquamarine Fury II.
He let me sip his beer. I told him it tasted like horse piss.
We went fishing on the Luxapililla, ate sardines &
crackers for lunch. I showed him how I gutted worms
into tubes that slid onto the hook like a glove. I could
tell he was proud but couldn’t find the words to say it.
Some men live like that, like mathematicians who can’t solve
their own equations. He handed me a polished pecan
that his father handed to him before he went to war,
before he got married, before he cut the bridge of his nose
on sea coral somewhere in the South Pacific. I think
he expected me to give it to my son one day but that
never happened. He knew I wouldn’t the day I puked
up chili dogs at the ballpark and told him that I wanted
to go home.
John Dorroh strongly believes in the power of sharing & collaborating. “Although I write alone, I need other eyes when I’m done to help revise. It’s a smart thing to do, don’t you think?” He suffers from a disease called “idea overload,” for which there is no cure. Future plans include a chapbook about whacky events that happened in his science classroom and another about swimming pool and hot tub rules. He bakes & cooks and writes about baking & cooking. His first chapbook comes out in late spring.
Allison Renner is an editor for Flash Fiction Magazine and the Publicity & Reviews Manager for Split/Lip Press. Her fiction and photography has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Daily Drunk, Six Sentences, Rejection Letters, Versification, Thimble Literary Magazine, and vulnerary magazine. She can be found online at allisonrennerwrites.com and on Twitter @AllisonRWrites.