Marty by Kevin Ridgeway

I saw a
photograph
of my father
taken when
he was just
five years old.
without tattoos
on his arm.
a clean slate
like the one
my nephew
still enjoys
today. long
before he
cared about
what other
people think.
before he
disguised
his pain
behind a
wall of
heroin
and
firearms.
and a
lifetime
before
it was
my turn
to feel
the shame
outside of
a clean slate.

KEVIN RIDGEWAY lives and writes in Long Beach, CA. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, San Pedro River Review, The Cape Rock, Spillway, Up the River, Suisun Valley Review, KYSO Flash, Home Planet News, Cultural Weekly, Big Hammer, Misfit Magazineand So it Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. He is the author of six chapbooks of poetry. His latest book, A Ludicrous Split, He also has a collaboration with fellow poet Gabriel Ricard,  available from Alien Buddha Press.

He also has a new book out with Spartan Press.

check it out and get yourself a copy today.

https://stubbornmulepress.bigcartel.com/product/too-young-to-know