No. 9

Summer 2005

My father the historian, brandishing his razor sharp shears. He’s paced the garden since the crack of dawn in rubber boots and boxer shorts, cursing at the trunk of the family tree. It’s up to him now: who stays, who goes. All night sparks flew from the grinding stone. Now the glint of clean steel in the sun, a single-minded clench of the jaw. I watch him work—Uncle Bob, dead ten years, stock still between his blades. As if holding his breath. ‘Backstabbing bastard,’ Dad says, and lops him flush. I carry him over and dump him into the burn barrel. Aunt Kathy’s next, lopped and dropped. And Cousin Peter, the no-good son of a bitch. I stare at what’s left of the tree. A few scattered limbs. Scars and nubs. Little drops of sap. Already I can’t remember the ones he’s hacked away. Next goes Grandpa Dan, my favorite, married in, grafted on in sixty-two. ‘No one ever liked him,’ Dad says. He hands me the limb. ‘Grandpa who?’ I say, sliding him into the flames.

Copyright 2005, Andrew Michael Roberts

nidus is an online publication supported by the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh's English Department.