{"id":140,"date":"2026-04-07T22:01:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T22:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-2\/?page_id=140"},"modified":"2026-04-13T02:48:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T02:48:22","slug":"portrait-of-papa","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-2\/poetry\/portrait-of-papa\/","title":{"rendered":"Portrait of Papa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Renee Kalagayan<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In my favorite photo of my mother\u2019s father,<\/span><\/p>\n

a khaki cap and pants walk away from me.<\/span><\/p>\n

Slicked hair silvers over a head<\/span><\/p>\n

red with earnestness. Beneath sprout ears thick with silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

A burgundy shirt balloons in early winter air.<\/span><\/p>\n

His musician\u2019s feet shuffle a sad measure he cannot hear<\/span><\/p>\n

on the road\u2014like a burro\u2019s body, wracked<\/span><\/p>\n

with the weight of braying. My Papa is eighty<\/span><\/p>\n

and kinder now. Before this moment<\/span><\/p>\n

I had asked him, Could we take a walk?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Whether he heard me or not,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

we went, his back bent in<\/span><\/p>\n

the early evening\u2019s tedium, scoliosis<\/span><\/p>\n

patiently staking its crooked claim.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I love the curve of his spine, pulling<\/span><\/p>\n

his body forward, forward.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I imagine years from now, my own children<\/span><\/p>\n

will ask, What did your Papa look like?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

and instead of showing his face, I will show this<\/span><\/p>\n

photo\u2014the lean arch of his back, red swath of shirt,<\/span><\/p>\n

noble as his blood, long length of weakening arms<\/span><\/p>\n

that have held on so long to love\u2014the way he walks<\/span><\/p>\n

beside my mother, each slow for the other\u2019s sake,<\/span><\/p>\n

plodding little by little out of the shade<\/span><\/p>\n

and into the sweetness of light.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Renee Kalagayan In my favorite photo of my mother\u2019s father, a khaki cap and pants walk away from me. Slicked hair silvers over a head red with earnestness. Beneath sprout ears thick with silence. A burgundy shirt balloons in early winter air. His musician\u2019s feet shuffle a sad measure he cannot hear on the road\u2014like… <\/p>\n

Read more Portrait of Papa<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"parent":21,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-140","page","type-page","status-publish","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/140\/revisions\/155"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}