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Andrew Hubbard was born and raised in a coastal Maine fishing village. He earned degrees in English and Creative Writing from Dartmouth College and Columbia University, respectively. For most of his career he has worked as Director of Training for major financial institutions, creating and delivering Sales, Management, and Technical training for user groups of up to 4,000. He has had four prose books published, and his fifth and sixth books, collections of poetry, were published in 2014 and 2016 by Interactive Press. He is a casual student of cooking and wine, a former martial arts instructor and competitive weight lifter, a collector of edged weapons, and a licensed handgun instructor. He lives in rural Indiana with his family, two Siberian Huskies, and a demon cat. Barrow Point It was a chance comment Nothing more—a throwaway remark. We were standing on a windy headland Cold, bare, with barren spits of grass And then, huge, broken rocks And booming hiss of dark, sullen breakers. You said, “This is an unlucky place” And it felt right, even though I’m too analytical to believe in luck. To me, what others see as luck Is mathematical probability in action. Who needs to call in spooks and voodoo To explain lost keys, or a promotion, Or a hit on the lottery? It’s just things working out In their randomly ordered, Orderly random way. But—sure to God—it felt Like an unlucky place. To be strictly honest I have to admit that things I don’t let in, sometimes let themselves in, And feelings are as real In their own way as numbers. We left and I was not sorry to go. I kept looking behind To see if anything was following. Just the Flu It sounded like the doctor Was talking from far away, underwater. He said, “little kids spike a high fever He’s strong, just give him lots of fluids He’ll be right as rain tomorrow.” So I shook and baked and sweat And slept and dreamed I was in a field of tall brown waving grass And low, lush blueberry bushes Bent with heavy loads of bursting fruit. I had the scrubbed-out lard can Mommy gave me for berries And I was on my knees picking And dropping berries into the can And as they fell each one turned into a pearl Pure white and gleaming. The pearls all whispered And their voices blended Saying, “you won’t be poor any more, You’ll never be poor any more.” “Food—all you want And a puppy, and the clothes Mommy’s ashamed to ask for And medicine for sister.” I ran home with the lard can Hugged to my chest and the pearls Clicking together like marbles. I gave them all to Mommy And she held me and cried And cried. Her tears dropped On my face, and I began to know I was not there, I’d left Without even knowing For the place Pearls come from. Playing Checkers with my Father Almost every Sunday morning
I turn a deaf ear to the “honey-do’s” And take the fold-up checker set Over to the park and down To the little concrete tables Under the old trees, beside the river. I watch for Dad and he comes Down the stairs from Riverside Drive exactly on time. I swear he was born punctual. He’s using his “special occasion” cane. He calls it his “Cajun” cane Because that’s what I called it When I was five years old. His wisps of hair are combed just so, his shoes are shined And he’s wearing the yellow and black bow tie Reserved for Sundays—and me. We hug briefly and I feel How terribly thin he is And how the cancer drugs Have pushed his shoulder blades out Like buds of angel wings. We sit, and while I set up the board His mind weaves back and forth Across the decades, and he tells Stories of his wives, his jobs, His triumphs, and us children. None of the stories are new But he tells them with vigor, And gets them mostly right. We start the first game And my challenge commences. When this ritual began 20 years ago I couldn’t beat him if my life depended on it, Now he can barely plan a move ahead And sometimes loses focus altogether. I work the game so he wins And never guesses my strategy. (His pride is ferocious.) We play two games. He wins both, and says, “Can’t beat your old man yet son.” The wind has picked up And the clouds are thickening So we quit a little early. I walk him slowly back to his building See him onto the elevator And he says spryly, “same time Next Sunday, right Merv?” Calling me, like he always does when he’s tired, By my dead brother’s name.
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