Lew Watts

Anonymous 

Dad’s slumped over the kitchen table. This is where he sleeps, has slept, in the two years since the accident. Someone left grease on a girder, and Dad slipped and fell forty feet. He’ll be dead in a few years.  

raw liver 
a bitter edge 
to the blue 

“He’s in bed, resting.” 

It is late afternoon and getting dark. Standing on our doorstep is a stocky man in soiled overalls. The man is pleased that Dad is resting—it’s me he wants to talk to. 

“So, we know who did it,” the man says, quietly. 

“Did what?” 

“Blocked your dad’s claim.” 

The steel works has a long history of injuries, mostly fingers and toes, and the occasional smashed jaw. Each is taken up by the union, argued, and settled. The company has decided to make an example of my father. 

“It’s not right. So we wondered what you wanted done, like. Your choice, ‘course, but we don’ do topping.”

I close my eyes and imagine someone in a suit, dragged into an alley. 

He smirks. “And don’ worry, no one’ll ever know.”

newspaper archives . . . 
searching for a name 
to whisper 

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About the Author

Lew Watts is the haibun co-editor of Frogpond and the author of Tick-Tock (Snapshot Press, 2019), a haibun collection that received an Honorable Mention in the Haiku Society of America’s 2020 Merit Book Awards. His publications include the novel Marcel Malone and the poetry collection Lessons for Tangueros. He lives in Chicago.