Joshua Coben is the author of two poetry collections, Maker of Shadows, winner of the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, and Night Chaser (David Robert Books, 2020). Born in St. Louis, he earned an undergraduate degree at Washington University and a master’s in elementary education from the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

The Absent Father

An iPoem

by Joshua Coben

Three lives I flicked alight
with a few match scrapes.

I cupped them till they caught
and singed my hand—
People on couch
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