Allan Peterkin
He told me
in passing
somewhere in the list
of bad luck and
bad choices
all the things
that had somehow
brought him here
This telling
was so soft
as to be dream-like
that
she had 
fallen
off a ride
at the county fair
on a day he 
was trying to be her dad
Didn’t make it
was all he said
then moved on
to the next wreck
(the first divorce)
I didn’t ask
what I wanted to
how old
was it a rollercoaster
how?
This
one thing
carried
all the weight
This
is where
I put my pen down
Where I looked in his face
and found something
other than pity.
About the poet:
Allan Peterkin is a Toronto doctor and writer. He heads the Health, Arts and Humanities Program at the University of Toronto and is a founding editor of ARS MEDICA: A Journal of Medicine, the Arts and Humanities.
About the poem:
“The inspiration for the poem came from a newspaper clipping about an accident at a fair where a young girl fell off a ride. I started thinking about how losing a child in this way might unravel a life.”
Poetry editors:
Judy Schaefer and Johanna Shapiro
