I’ll still be on these walls—

licking an ice cream cone,

with a lame haircut,

looking good in a new suit,

smiling with my arms

around my boys.

I’ll still be on these walls

making Mama and everyone else too

smile

and remember.

Audition

One day, my daddy says, his face half shaved

and his robe still on,

I’m going to be in commercials.

On the television a famous football player

is selling hotel rooms, and

I’m remembering the time we watched

this old friend of my dad’s

shoot a commercial. It was about shaving cream.

I watched him

rub it on his face, then take the razor to it.

He was supposed to look

like he’d just stepped out of the shower, so

the camera people

sprayed water all over his face and chest. Then put a towel around his neck.

He didn’t have on a shirt but

he was wearing pants, down below

where the camera wasn’t going.

That’s going to be me someday, ZJ, my dad would say,

making commercials about cars and

shaving cream and maybe even fancy hotels.

And now he’s sitting here and saying it again,

not remembering

last year when he finally went for an audition.

He only had to say one line:

I’m Zachariah Johnson, and this is my car.

Then he was supposed to open the door of a fancy blue car

and smile as he stepped inside.

He was wearing a dark blue suit,

had on his Super Bowl ring and the watch

Mama gave him for his thirtieth birthday.

But he kept freezing. Standing there by that car like

he didn’t know where he was supposed to be or

what he was supposed to say.

I watched him from the place they made me stand

back behind the camera.

I wanted to scream the line to him. To shout it

loud as I could.

I wanted to say it for him if he needed me to.

The guy next to me was holding a big poster

with my daddy’s line on it,

but still, my daddy couldn’t say it.

He couldn’t say it.

Take 1

take 2

take 3

all the way up to

take 72

and by then

my daddy’s head was hurting.

By then the director was saying

Let’s call it a day,

rubbing his hand over his face like he was

the most tired man in the world.

Like he knew all the takes in the world

weren’t going to make this thing right.

Good Days

Daddy works slow, making a fire in the fireplace.

I’m sitting on one side of him,

Mom standing on the other like she’s afraid

he’ll set the house on fire. But he doesn’t

because today’s a good day. His smile

is his same old Daddy smile

and from where he’s crouched on the floor, he reaches over,