Current
Issue
Fall 2026 / Volume 13.1
Keith Kopka
—
Confirmed Sex Haver
Now I know you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.
Genesis 22:12
Procreation, like fire, was once just a means
of survival. Infants look more like their fathers
because it’s harder to abandon or kill
what you can identify with. Craig’s kid squirms,
and I shift to keep his head secured
in the V between my forearm and bicep.
He looks nothing like me, but instinct still kicks in,
and I would commit murder to keep him safe.
Most people picture a defenseless child,
but Isaac, by all accounts, was at least a teenager
when God told Abraham to prove it.
I wonder if that made it easier on him to follow
the order. In our adolescence, Craig and I
set off an entire pallet of fireworks
then hid together under an upturned wheelbarrow,
ordnance exploding against its metal shell.
His son is beautiful, but holding him doesn’t deliver
the same hormonal rush in me that almost
burning down the neighborhood did. Pins and needles
are starting to creep up my arm, so I tell Craig
I think it’s time for a diaper change, hoping
to be unburdened, but he tells me he’s not taking
parenting advice from a virgin. And I realize
he might as well be right. In Genesis,
sex is a commandment inviting us to participate
in God’s creativity. But for me, the night sky returns
to dark no matter how grand the finale. My arm is asleep
and for a moment so is the baby. Then his eyes
rocket open, and recognizing I am not his father
he begins to cry. When Abraham lifted the knife
above his terrified child, an angel of the lord
stayed his hand. I hold my body still as an altar
and pray that Craig will rescue me, taking back his only
son because I have nothing else to offer him.
Bildungsroman
I watch the boy reach
across the stanchion,
and for a moment I’m sure
he’s going to touch,
but he stops, hovers his hand
in the empty space
where a goddess’s arm
has snapped off above her breast.
His father is distracted,
reading the museum placard aloud
to him and to me. It’s believed
this bust was commissioned
to celebrate the victory at Issus.
We’re the only people
in the gallery, but the room
is still crowded. Rows
of plinths like stumps
in a felled forest. Incomplete
torsos, disembodied
heads, hundreds of finger
fragments. A sculptor removes
everything that is not the god
until only the god remains.
The boy’s hand is still poised
when he asks: Were Issus
the bad guys, Dad? And, like
so many in history, dad makes
a quick decision. Yep, he says,
lifting his son into his arms
and away from the statue.
I want to grow up to be a parent,
to lie for no reason
other than because it’s easier. History
is knowing the city of Issus
did not burn in that battle, but it’s
also all the accounts of the fire.
It’s my father, who is very much alive,
rising from the dead to grab his
chisel, to strike his flint.
Keith Kopka’s newest collection of poems, VIA. (2027), is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press as part of UWSP’s Portage Poetry Series. He received the Tampa Review Prize for his previous collection of poems, Count Four (University of Tampa Press, 2020). His writing has been supported by fellowships from the MacDowell Foundation, Reader’s Digest, Centrum, and the Vermont Studio Center. Kopka is a Senior Editor at Narrative magazine and Poetry Editor at Philadelphia Stories. He teaches in the low-res MFA at Holy Family University in Philadelphia, where he serves as Program Director.
