FATHERS OF THE UNIVERSE by Megan Freshley

As a little boy in Perrysburg, Ohio, he takes a shit on
the marble steps of the methodist church while his
father preaches a sermon inside. It must be impossible
for my father to tell apart his father and The Father as
he crouches down. It is the fifties so his shorts are
fifties shorts. Because it is the fifties, the church is
across the street from a barbershop. The men inside
watch him as they get their faces lathered with a soft-
bristle brush.

Megan Freshley grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she began writing poetry at the School for Creative and Performing Arts. She earned her BA at Antioch College and went on to study at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. She is a first-year poetry student in the Portland State University MFA program and 2013 recipient of the Academy of American Poets Award.