Anne Dyer Stuart: Running with My Father

My father taught me how to run, brother’s boxers 
at fourteen, feet too short for running shoes, 
I slapped pavement in thick, baby high-tops, 
three miles like miracles. We’d wind up 
neighborhoods around the levee, fend off 
dogs, sure any minute I’d feel the sink 
of teeth in my Popeye calf, that snarl more 
threatening than a boy. My father taught me
the body was a desperate thing, besieged 
by desire, it needed discipline. Count 
every grape, conquer the waste of raisins,
consider how many it takes to feel
satisfied. My father’s relationship 
with flesh made me heavy, breathless, lead legs, 
stiches, mile four a curse. We’d get to the stretch
before home, sprint what was left, my scream 
tearing through summer air, failure from 
the first step.  My father’s lessons masked
kindness. Tough leather of a promise 
in the self, cut from somebody’s words
at some point, taken as fact over time.