You set out with him in a blizzard,
you in your Mighty Mac, him in his parka,
workboots, wool hat, and holding in the firm
grip of his thick black gloves an axe.

Though only ten minutes have passed
since you left the house, it seems like
hours the wind’s been driving the snow
into your face like so many tiny needles.

You can’t see a thing other than
a veil of white and the stinging flakes
and his bulky shape up ahead as
your father yells, “Keep up, boy”.

And you keep up because this is how
a man becomes a man in Nebraska –
dutifully following his father through
a white-out with both of you on a mission.

And you stumble and you try to
do your best to keep up, because
out here on the Great Plains,
good boys don’t disappoint their fathers.

At last you can see the tree ahead,
the one where you are headed,
the one you talked about before
you left the farmhouse.

You get there and your father pauses
only for a second as he assesses
the situation, forms a strategy
where the blow of the axe will fall.

He swings the axe down hard
into the tree – a powerful but precise
blow that cuts through the thick rope
that has held your brother there overnight.

His body slumps to the ground and you worry that
your father was wrong – that he might be dead.
You see that his lips are not blue, but are
still the bright cherry red of the lipstick.

After failing to rouse him awake and
making sure he’s still breathing,
your father says to you, “Looks like we’ll
have to drag him back to the house.”

He flips your brother on his back,
gathers the rope from around the tree
then loops it under each arm of your brother
“Pull hard and keep up,” he says, handing you one end of rope.

And you pull hard and you try to
do your best to keep up, because
out here on the Great Plains,
good boys don’t disappoint their fathers.

Another piece from the genre I’m calling “Bizarro Ted Kooser”