This made my dad cry
Updated: Jun 23, 2020

(Above: Minoan wallpainting of dolphins from the Queens bathroom at Knossos)
The Dolphin
by, Yulia Rafailova
Once
When I was eight
I spent about four hours
That felt like a year
Drawing a dolphin
Not on paper
But on my wall
In the room that I shared with my sister
And the computer
I thought it'd just take me a minute
Then I would erase it
Because my parents would panic
And lecture me about the rent deposit
And that food stamps aren't like real money
But I was eight and
It was right before the internet
Or maybe right before those little AOL disks started coming in the mail
We had Encarta Encyclopedia on CD ROM
A deep dark green disc
With fancy gold letters
Filled with animals I never saw anywhere else
The dolphins looked so simple to draw
Just one long squiggly line all the way around
Oooo you're gonna get in trouble!
My big sister whispered strongly
But then grinned so big because she knew I didn't care
And she went so far as to dare me
And I didn't even care about that
I just wanted to see if I could
I already knew that I would
It must have been about four hours, maybe more
The first couple on my own
Then a long moment of terror when my father walked in
Oh yeah, it's Sunday, SHIT! Dad's home!
But when he walked in
And before he grinned his big grin
He frowned at my wall
Took my pencil from my hand
Started to erase part of my squiggly line
And somehow, he was able to get the dorsal fin just right
And after that I don't really remember what came next
Except joy
The best kind
The kind that sticks with you for a while
The kind that makes you love to draw
Especially dolphins
Thousands and thousands of dolphins
*Originally published in the Best of the Poetry Salon Anthology, 2018