When my dad still lived in the same house as us
he came home one time
drunk as a skunk with no bunk bed
(which, as you can imagine,
is pretty funking drunk),
his hand bloody from some mishap with a broken bottle,
and his face snotty with blubbering tears.

I had never seen such a thing from my father before.
I don’t know what led him to the drink
or to the crying jag
or to the shattered pieces of bottle.
Clearly my father had a rotten night.

I was too young to understand what was going on
too young to ask what happened.
Maybe I still am.

In later years,
I never followed up
to ask what that night had been about.
Perhaps I should have,
considering how it stayed with me.