| On Clearing Dad’s Driveway by Rob Neuteboom You command me to shovel the driveway in a dream, but it’s warm out and the snow is inside the house— I push slushy accumulations into childhood corners, behind the armoires and china hutches of my past. The real work comes in cleaning up garbage piled underneath Mom’s handcrafted, antique walnut table, the one I took to the dump last year at your request, to make room for the replacement you bought after she died. The legs had become brittle as bone, the top a dismantled torso. I can’t clear it all away; these bottles and wrappers morph into photo albums disgorging memories like mortars. If I stay here, I’ll find my own grave in the garbage and die uncovering what’s so carefully buried beneath. |
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Rob holds a Master's degree in English from the University of South Dakota and |