Doing the Bills
By
Lee Upton
My father impaling bills
on a nail on a block of wood
then putting his head in his hands
and you with your head in your hands
and my head in my hands
hands over my eyes
and I see again what I forgot for decades
my father
after doing the bills
crumbling bread in a bowl
and pouring milk over the bread
and spooning in sugar.
on a nail on a block of wood
then putting his head in his hands
and you with your head in your hands
and my head in my hands
hands over my eyes
and I see again what I forgot for decades
my father
after doing the bills
crumbling bread in a bowl
and pouring milk over the bread
and spooning in sugar.
Share this column
Disclaimer
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2021 by Lee Upton, “Doing the Bills” from The Southern Review, Vol. 37:3, Summer 2021. Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.