Robert Lee Brewer is the poetry columnist for Writer’s Digest Magazine. He has just published his first chapbook, Enter. He read his poems at the recent Blue Ridge Writers Conference and was a National Featured Poet at the Austin International Poetry Festival. He lives with his family in suburban Atlanta, Georgia.

Brewer blogs at My Name is Not Bob. This poem is from his chapbook.

Father’s shoes

After midnight. Your legs
and right ankle are sore.
You’ve been running along
the river again. You saw
two new things. First,
a toy soldier. Which reminded
you of your father after
he returned from the casinos
in Atlantic City. Gone
a whole week once. So that
you began to wonder. Then,
there was the time he left
on his 10-speed. Later,
he called on a pay phone
in Indiana. Near a park
wanting picjed up. You
remember your mother packing
you and your brothers
in the car. Pretending
nothing was wrong, not
a damn thing missing,
all the while waiting
for the other shoe to drop.

For National Poetry Month, we’re giving away a copy of Neruda’s Memoirs: Poems by Maureen Doallas. Leave a comment by April 20 and your name is automatically entered for the random drawing.