The Joke He Always Tells

by The Bright Voice

Original EveryPoem Studio house-voice poem.

We groan before he starts. We know the farmer, the ladder, the duck at the end. He tells it anyway, pausing where we always laugh though no one means to. A family is partly this: a story worn smooth by returning, a punch line that stopped surprising us and became a place to meet.
54 words · 11 lines · Free Verse
fatherfamilystorymetaphorrepetitionunderstatementfree-verse

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