Playing Dead
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Although born into a military family that moved frequently, Andrew Hudgins’s (1951—) roots in the South and as a Southern Baptist have
. . . MORE »By Andrew Hudgins
Our father liked to play a game.
He played that he was dead.
He took his thick black glasses off
and stretched out on the bed.
He wouldn’t twitch and didn’t snore
or move in any way.
He didn’t even seem to breathe!
We asked, Are you okay?
We tickled fingers up and down
his huge, pink, stinky feet—
He didn’t move; he lay as still
as last year’s parakeet.
We pushed our fingers up his nose,
and wiggled them inside—
Next, we peeled his eyelids back.
Are you okay? we cried.
I really thought he might be dead
and not just playing possum,
because his eyeballs didn’t twitch
when I slid my tongue across ’em.
He’s dead, we sobbed—but to be sure,
I jabbed him in the jewels.
He rose, like Jesus, from the dead,
though I don’t think Jesus drools.
His right hand lashed both right and left.
His left hand clutched his scrotum.
And the words he yelled—I know damn well
I’m way too young to quote ’em.
Andrew Hudgins, “Playing Dead” from Poetry (July 2005). Reprinted with the permission of the author.