Scott Beal

Happy Birthday, Who Died?


Problems you don't want solved
but pose anyway: why make the bed
trim and smooth as a boiled egg
each morning to shell and crumple it that night?
Deep down are we decent? Wanna bet?
Who died and made you the dad?

One prefers to think one's a dad
without a death, that though we've solved
few riddles it's a fair bet
you can fall unarmed into bed,
do your best to make someone's night
and voila! an egg

becomes more than an egg.
Though you're certain your dad
never gave your mom a night
so sullied, that they alone solved
the no-muss no-fuss miracle of life with clean bed
and hands—and though you can bet

your ass that no punk's penis will abet
your daughter someday to whip her egg
into a grandwhelp – the mangling of a bed
is violence enough for every other dad-
to-be. You're absolved.
Conscience, call it a night

but just don't call it that night
when your squeeze was on leave and you bet
you could get away with what'd hurt her most—you solved
the odds and broke the eggs
and fixed an omelet not much like what your dad
would carry at times to your mother's bed,

then you cleaned the mess and freshened the bed
where you'd meet your returned love with a chaste g'night.
Who died and made me the dad
is that bad-lunged lummox I was, who'd bet
his life on one spin, and the next would cradle those stakes like eggs.
That man was a problem I solved

and buried far from our conjugal bed. (Wanna bet?)
He had a bad night. He was a bad egg.
And when the missus said I was a dad, he dissolved—

on this point my conscience and I stand resolved
despite recurrent boil and slither that breed
doubt. I'll find the sort of plot he'd hatch
unfolding over the course of my morning,
some fib compounding into a knot I dread
to see unraveled. I'm an amnesiac Green Beret

of familial subterfuge—where'd I learn this cabaret
of feints? I'm a compound that can't be resolved
into Jekyll and Hyde, Westley and the Dread
Pirate Roberts. A new breed
of binary star, one gravity eating another. Ha! Good morning,
kids! Happy New Year! Time for us to hatch

into those better selves we promised. To pry the hatch
and extract the old ghouls from our domes. A fat raspberry
to Mr. Outgoing President. Bring on the pulse of morning
to drum out this pulse of maneuvering. Resolved:
if you want sea monkeys I will breed
sea monkeys. If you have dared

to cross my orders you won't have to dread
a word-whip cracked to hatch
the back of your mind with welts. I'll breed
all the sea monkeys you could want, let you bury
me in sea monkeys. Resolved:
I'll pack fruit and cookies in your lunch each morning,

keep my slate and hangover to myself each morning,
throw you love more open than dads have often dared.
Is this me talking, or that liar I resolved
out of the picture? Is he my escape hatch?
Do resolutions give us something to betray
besides each other? If this year rolls out a new breed

of lie detectors we'll be ready with a new breed
of lies. The sleepless, bloody morning
I heard the first bray
of my daughter, what seized me was more than dread
or joy. I'd hatch
to find my yolk had resolved

into no recognizable breed, and if I dared
to jump out of that morning (down the hatch!)
there'd be no choice who to save or bury, whatever I resolved.