"Grease the skids,"
said his father.

He had no idea
what skids were,
or where or how to grease them,
or what relevance either grease or skids had
to his current problem.

His father was prone
to sudden, short and seemingly certain solutions
to any problem,
all of which spilled glibly
and were largely incomprehensible.

"Grease the skids."
"Keep your nose to the grindstone."
"Never say never."

One day,
if he had the courage,
he would ask his father
to expound–
to take 5 full minutes–
to explain what he meant by,
"Grease the skids,"
and how exactly one does that,
and force him to speak
not from 70 years of mindless mimicry,
but from his heart,
truly and immediately.

He hoped it wouldn't kill the old man–
but then, better to die of sudden honesty,
than to sink slowly into a swamp
of thoughtless, parroted cliches.

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.