Paul Potts

First Memory

It was on the dining room floor, the tile cool and a little shiny,
with a faint line of something sticky along one edge, and there were
boot prints across it, darker at the heels, leading from the door
into the kitchen and then over toward the table where my father sat,
one chair leg shorter than the others so it ticked once when he shifted,
his hands still marked from work, dirt in the lines of his fingers
and under the nails, and he kept looking back and forth between me
and Granny, who had her hands folded tight in her lap,
worrying one thumb over the other, the skin on them thin and drawn,
her eyes set on me as if I might do something worth seeing. Above them
the light hummed a little, and on the table there was a glass with a ring
of milk drying up the side, and I had my fingers in my mouth,
worrying at them too, not knowing why, just the feeling of it, and the room
was quiet for a second except for that small sound and the chair ticking
once more, and then there was a laugh, soft, maybe his, maybe hers,
and someone leaned down and lifted me up and pulled my hand away.
What I remember, or what I think I remember now, is not any of that exactly,
not the boots or the glass or the sound of the chair, but how it was,
all of it there at once, the table and the light and their faces, as though
I were, for that moment, the only one it had ever happened to.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Paul Potts (b. 2007) is a poet from Oklahoma, U.S. You can find his work in Frontier Poetry, Posit Journal and The Louisville Review. He was a finalist for the inaugural Rowayat Poetry Prize and winner of the The Howl’s 2026 Poetry Prize. Outside of writing, he enjoys playing jazz on both the drums and vibraphone.