Andrew Riutta

Note to My Daughter

This morning I don’t really know if I’m hearing a cicada out in the trees longing for another or just the sharpened silence of my own losses stretching to try to meet some kind of hope. Remember when you were maybe seven or eight and, one night, I helped you make an Albert Einstein hand puppet out of a paper lunch sack for some kind of presentation in your class? After you went to bed, well . . . I drank about a dozen beers. And then begged him for all the answers. He gave me only a couple.

Grandma's dog . . .
just another old Buddha
on crooked legs

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About the Author

Andrew Riutta was born and raised in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He is a father, chef, and Zamboni operator. His essay “The Myths of Manhood,” from the collection This I Believe: On Fatherhood (Jossey-Bass), was featured on Public Radio International’s Bob Edwards Show in 2012.