(compare Luke 15:11-32)

Growing up,
I was the good one:
choir, Torah study, youth group, prayers;
more confident in righteousness
than Paul in the flesh.

At home, too.
Chores:
did I ever complain?
Hated farming and dutifully trudged
to the south forty.

He skipped off to the creek;
thought Dad couldn’t smell
bottles buried under
camouflaging newspaper
in the trash.

Mostly, he was a real man;
the fate
of that inheritance
should have been obvious.
Boys will be boys . . .

While I took care of Mom
—until she died
and managed the business
to make the money
to buy the cow.

That fatted calf
had to come from somewhere.
Does Dad even see the irony?
Throwing a party for a man
whose downfall was partying!

“All I have is yours,” he says.
But he never once
ran through half the county
crying, “Come!
Celebrate this son.”