After returning home from a family excursion
to the circus, my Dad announced,
“any monkey can do what they do,”
then laid his back on the shag carpet,
lifted his hands toward the ceiling
and told me to do a handstand on top of them
I was in gymnastics at the time
and had recently felled the biggest boy
in my third-grade class at arm wrestling—
but this seemed pretty crazy
Still, I put my palms flat against my dad’s
and tried twice to kick myself up
into a vertical position,
each time landing on the floor beside him
Undeterred and saying we could join
the Flying Wallendas,
my dad told me to kick harder,
so I did—
flipping over his head and
knocking the barrel end table
onto its side with such a thud
my mom came in to yell at us
With the tops of our heads touching,
we giggled like girls until she stormed
back to the kitchen
I got up to try once more,
this time getting my arms, torso, then legs
extended into a perfect line
where I balanced
and looked down at my dad
who looked up at me—
but because everything that is perfect
must end,
my arms began to shake
and I fell flat on top of him
He pulled his arms in,
wrapped them around me tight
I could smell Old Spice in his armpits,
beer on his breath
and for a moment
I kept my head on his chest,
closed my eyes
and rested
Elisabeth Harrahy
Elisabeth Harrahy’s work has appeared in Zone 3, Paterson Literary Review, Blue Heron Review, The Café Review, Passengers Journal, Ghost City Review, I-70 Review, Wisconsin People & Ideas, and elsewhere, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. She is an associate professor of biology at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Portage Magazine 