Mornings at Dad’s

This author is a recipient

of the Sigma Tau Delta Award

Isabelle Nelson

is a Senior majoring in Secondary Education, English, and ESL. She is currently student teaching and is involved in Quercus and Triota.

There is sawdust in the coffee

that always comes in dime-store mugs,

mugs bought after the divorce, the divorce

where he got the dog, the gray, cancerous dog

that lounges in my bed

with flannel sheets, flannel sheets

that are also full of sawdust

from the construction

of our lives, our lives

of dime-store mugs, and dogs with cancer, and coffee filled with sawdust.