Knots 

by Joseph Stroud

Trying to tie my shoes, clumsy, not able to work out

the logic of it, fumbling, as my father stands there,

his anger growing over a son who can’t even do

this simplest thing for the first time, can’t even manage

the knot to keep his shoes on-You think someone's

going to tie your shoes for you the rest of your life?-

No, I answer, forty-five years later, tying my shoe,

hands trembling with this memory. My father

and all those years of childhood not being able to work out

how he loved me, a knot so tight it has taken all my life

to untie.

from Of This World. 

© Copper Canyon Press, 2006.