Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, dadakuku, Nixes Mate Review, and The Ugly Monster. He has also been published in anthologies such as French Connections, Sounds of Wind, Reimagine America, and The Vagabond Lunar Collection. His newest collections are All’s Well Isn’t You and Cant Republic: Erasures and Blackouts. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine and co-organizer of the annual Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives and works in Boston.

Knots

Father gathered ties
with butterfly collector’s eyes,
virtuoso choosing
shades, fractals.

At 22, my ideal design
cartoon faces.  He would fit me
from his doors of racks
holding my student hands
like a frustrated painter, my four-in-hand
quick” young man’s knot”
vs. his time-taking half-Windsor.

Once knotting straight solids
and false family crests, Dad
chameleoned old with new,
veteran gentleman’s suit and swirls,
Mardi Gras beads he never wore,
introducing Mom to the stripper
table dancing across New
Orleans, Mom told her
she was beautiful.

A month after Dad dies,
my tie inherited
a melted ice river
on slated shell.  Tattooed turtle, head pale,
bulging neck sticking out,
trickling raindrops I’d rather dodge
than dance through.

Two years later, planning trip
I pick out stalks in my size
for a tie to hang from,
berry vine surviving late winter,
traveling far enough to see
the new side of Sun.

I will paint my face with colors
filling Father’s hues.

— Chad Parenteau

To have your work considered for the Lyrical send it to:
Doug Holder, 25 School St.; Somerville, MA 02143
dougholder@post.harvard.edu