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Once

I was fifteen, a Sunday late afternoon,
doing a load of laundry in the kitchen

for the week ahead when my father walked in
from a weekend away golfing with other men.

Just he and I standing on the same beige
linoleum floor, his duffel dropped as he gulped

a glass of cold water at the sink.
Want me to add your stuff? I asked

& he nodded, still swallowing.
I dumped his clothes on the floor

& a scant pair of pink panties
landed in the pile.

Silence. Until his words—something about
his friends, the practical jokes they pull.

He picked up the pinkness
& threw it in the trash.

I’d already started keeping things inside
as if I had a lot to hide.

Sarah Dickenson Snyder has four collections: The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards, 2018), With a Polaroid Camera (2019), and Now These Three Remain (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards, 2023) with Best of Net and Pushcart Prize nominations.

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