The Bad Gospel of Brown Dad

Because I said so never taught me what starch actually did,

so I’d spray too much or too little randomly on the scrubs

Brown Dad wore to work. He’d ask for creases without

explaining he meant that tight slick line running down each leg.

Always-in-shorts me thought his third-language tongue

was using the wrong word. If because I said so had detail,

I wouldn’t have spent afternoons pressing the hot iron,

squirting water just for that hiss and not knowing what it did,

and smashing the front of each pant leg to the seams on the sides.

Because I said so would return home and become

“you embarrassed me, do better.” And the next afternoon,

I’d put more weight into the iron handle, I’d spray starch

and water, take that hiss as the chime of productivity,

and press each leg till the cloth down the seams puckered.

Because I said so demands faith without explanation,

replacing the scientific method with Brown Dad’s present

and lost anger.

Orignally published in Rigorous