by Lisa Underwood<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I lie down too tired to brush my teeth, staring Lisa C. Underwood received her Master of Arts in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Queens University. She has written for newspapers and magazines and worked in public relations for corporations and educational institutions. Her creative writing has appeared in journals and anthologies. Lisa\u2019s first book of poetry is The Bone Picker<\/em> (Finishing Line Press, due out in 2026). She lives in Greensboro, NC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Lisa Underwood I lie down too tired to brush my teeth, staringat an eighth-grade picture of you, your mouthbrilliant with metal, your green eyes begginglove me love me. I shut it in the drawer, out ofsight, out of mind, like all the things I keep inframes, on shelves, in closets, the boxes oftrading cards and action figures, trophies Ihaven\u2019t thrown away, thinking maybe you\u2019dwant them someday like your cat, only a shadownow. I know I should put her down but I don\u2019t,though she\u2019s bony and toothless, stone deaf,roaming the house howling for what I don\u2019t know.Calling, calling like your father on Sundays, likehis own father would do, alone and confused,always looking for something he\u2019d lost. Calling,calling until we dreaded picking up the phone,dreaded even his voice on the answering machine:It\u2019s PawPaw give me a call I\u2019m homeIt\u2019s PawPawIt\u2019sPawPawgivemeacallI\u2019mhomeIt\u2019sPawPawitsPawPaw\u2026I hear your father talking now to yourunanswered phone: It\u2019s Dad. Give us a call,we\u2019re home, and I try to remember to scold himfor making us sound so old. Lisa C. Underwood received her Master of Arts in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Queens University. She has written for newspapers and magazines and worked in public relations for corporations and educational institutions. Her creative writing has appeared in journals and anthologies. Lisa\u2019s first book of poetry is The Bone Picker (Finishing Line Press, due out in 2026). She lives in Greensboro, NC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-18-2025"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
at an eighth-grade picture of you, your mouth
brilliant with metal, your green eyes begging
love me love me<\/em>. I shut it in the drawer, out of
sight, out of mind, like all the things I keep in
frames, on shelves, in closets, the boxes of
trading cards and action figures, trophies I
haven\u2019t thrown away, thinking maybe you\u2019d
want them someday like your cat, only a shadow
now. I know I should put her down but I don\u2019t,
though she\u2019s bony and toothless, stone deaf,
roaming the house howling for what I don\u2019t know.
Calling, calling like your father on Sundays, like
his own father would do, alone and confused,
always looking for something he\u2019d lost. Calling,
calling until we dreaded picking up the phone,
dreaded even his voice on the answering machine:
It\u2019s PawPaw give me a call I\u2019m homeIt\u2019s PawPaw
It\u2019sPawPawgivemeacallI\u2019mhomeIt\u2019sPawPaw
itsPawPaw\u2026<\/em>I hear your father talking now to your
unanswered phone: It\u2019s Dad. Give us a call,
we\u2019re home<\/em>, and I try to remember to scold him
for making us sound so old. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n