By day, my father was a teacher—straight-laced,
carrying a briefcase and smile
everywhere he’d go. But once it’s dark,
after he brings me milk and cookies, reads
a bedtime story, kisses me
on the forehead, he would disappear
out to the back porch, and sit beneath
the moon, a banjo in his arms, and croon.

Cradling his banjo like a daughter,
he’d sing a lullaby to someone else—
one filled with longing and his memories
of bluegrass days, of picking strings and apples,
of whiskey breath and his own father’s hands—
calloused, rough, and nothing like his own.

He’d sing of mountain dew, of running through
a place called cripple creek. He’d beg the sky
to bury him beneath a willow tree
as the perfectly trimmed cypresses
that lined our quiet neighborhood were swaying
to the tapping of his tired, naked feet.

He’d finish up the set with one last song:
amazing Grace. He’d belt it out to God,
whom he’d lost his faith in years ago,
but felt the spirit of the night out here
in the Eden of suburbia,
a place that maybe never felt like home.

Katherine Hoerth is the author of three poetry collections, including Goddess Wears Cowboy Boots, which won the Helen C. Smith Prize for the best book of poetry in Texas in 2015. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Lamar University and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Lamar University Literary Press.