The brief poems of today’s column were written by Edward Nobles of Bangor about his father, who abandoned Nobles’ family. The absence his father left behind was “silent and ominous,” Nobles says, adding: “These two poems are aftershocks.”

Additional Photos

Sentences

The sledgehammer cracks

like my father’s heavy shouts

until the stone starts to break.

The sound then is different.

Only a thumb’s touch is needed.

The division is final.

Where He Went

My father gave up

wife children friends

dog car house every

worldly possession

traveling

far into a strange

space bottles

rotating shuffling clinking

searching vaguely for a genie

poof!