by Hannah White

Rifling through my father’s belongings in his trailer days after he overdosed. His army gear: a tactical backpack, a heavy camouflage helmet and sunglasses I try on. Collector’s pocketknives, brass knuckles, vape cartridges, a vomit-soaked hand towel. His collection of CDs and DVDs: Pearl Jam, Nirvana, violent looking war movies. A pack of menthol cigarettes, a framed photo of my sister and me, an album of photos of soldiers on the operating table with missing limbs in his ER in Iraq. Sobriety coins. 1 year, 2 years, 5. I stopped counting. Exotic ostrich western boots. I can see where the feathers were plucked out, darkened pinpricks sticking up like goosebumps over the toe. A ceramic bowl he made in rehab. Boston baseball caps for the team from the state he raised my sister and me in before he moved back to Texas, his home, when we were grown, to try one last time to get better. His wallet, no cash. Two white pills in a plastic bag.

And in a tiny pocket notebook at the bottom of a drawer under crumpled receipts and straw wrappers—I flip through the pages and stop—in his handwriting, a poem.

Hannah White is a writer and editor in Massachusetts. Her work appears in Brevity, Fourth Genre, Assay, Sundog Lit, Barnstorm Journal and elsewhere. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. She is Managing Editor of Literary Traveler. Bluesky: @hannahwhitehannah X: @Hannah4White