Matt Cariello
Fatherhood
All things matter
until they don't.
The finch's nest in the eaves
of the porch – its five eggs
must become five fledglings,
the five fledglings
my daughter guards
from the neighbor's marauding cat.
Then the fledglings become birds,
indistinguishable by the hundreds.
And my child,
she goes inside.
Bio
Matt Cariello's fourth book, Self Portrait in the Dark (Finishing Line Press) will be released in May 2025. It follows The Empty Field, (2022 Red Moon Press), Talk (2019) and A Boat That Can Carry Two (2011) both published by Bordighera Press. He's had stories, poems, haiku, and reviews published in Bennington Review, Voices in Italian Americana, Poet Lore, Evening Street Review, Modern Haiku, The Long Story, Indiana Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Typehouse, Sheila-Na-Gig, The Journal, and others. He's currently a senior lecturer in the English department at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. These poems are also part of his new collection, Colloquy on Mad Tom, due out in June 2025.