After My Stepfather’s Death

Listen to Wes McNair Reading the Poem

After My Stepfather’s Death
Initial Exploration
Again it is the moment before I left home
for good, and my mother is sitting quietly
in the front seat while my stepfather pulls me
and my suitcase out of the car and begins
hurling my clothes, though now
I notice for the first time how the wind
unfolds my white shirt and puts its slow
arm in the sleeve of my blue shirt and lifts them
all into the air above our heads so beautifully
I want to shout at him to stop and look up
at what he has made, but of course when I turn
to him, a small man, bitter even this young
that the world will not go his way, my stepfather
still moves in his terrible anger, closing the trunk,
and closing himself into the car as hard as he can,
and speeding away into the last years of his life.
Notebook Page 1
Transcript 1

   
Transitions and Structure
Notebook Page 2

Transcript 2

   
Endings and Line Breaks
Notebook Page 3

Transcript 3