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Pam Baggett <br /> 8800 Wilkerson Road <br /> Cedar Grove NC 27231 <br /> 919-537-2164 <br /> nightair@mindspring.com <br /> Mal 2-013 <br /> What to Do with a Father <br /> Girl, you do love a man. Even little you craved <br /> the sweat and car-grease smells coming off <br /> your daddy's worn green Dickies, ripped <br /> from back-crawling into boxy caves beneath <br /> Chevies or up under the house to fix pipes <br /> while your mama fretted about mud-stained floors <br /> and no water pressure. Loved scabbed up <br /> filthy knuckles scraping your baby-soft fingers, <br /> loved getting dirty enough to rate the soiled Lava <br /> next to Mama's pristine Dove. <br /> You were a girl who knew what to do <br /> with a father. Six years old, you climbed that rickety <br /> ladder to the roof, begged to help pry up <br /> loose shingles, to knock in nails that locked <br /> new ones in place. At seven you asked for a tool belt <br /> for your Chatty Cathy doll. Stood with his tipsy <br /> friends at Dingler's gas station, hands in pockets, <br /> wet the greasy pavement with your spit. Knee-schooched <br /> next to him along the garden's hot sand rows, <br /> drowning cabbage loopers in Campbell's soup cans <br /> of unlit gasoline. Saturdays you slouched <br /> against him while he watched Elvis, John Wayne, <br /> Audie Murphy. You loved that singing cowboy <br /> because your daddy did. Cried when Elvis <br /> limped into the desert to die, because even young <br /> you couldn't stand to see a man look so defeated. <br />