my dad’s been gone for a month as of today, as such, now seems as good a time as any to post some rather recent poems for and about him.
the first is a “cracked” sonnet (so i call it), and i read it at the memorial service. i didn’t write it specifically for the occasion, but i was finally able to finish the last two lines beforehand, so i read it there. the other two pieces are free verse.
//A Sonnet Akin To My Father’s Right Hip (Cracked)
Someday I will bury you, my father,
and the ground will cradle your exhaustion
like the afternoon beds of spent toddlers
who run without grand design or caution.
If the Bible is right you’ll then receive
coordinated parts to fit your knife mind
that knows the saxophone, but for now thieved
of dexterity, your hands remain blind.
But it’s not that time; it’s not that time yet,
or this is what I tell myself to sleep.
I am not middle-aged, kids underfoot,
And you’ve not yet seen five decades complete.
Rest now, my father, rest and have peace.
Memories I’ll hold close as skin, but your hand I release.
//untitled #1
They can see it.
Death has left greasy fingerprints across my face
and I shine like cheap pizza under the glare of heat lamp eyes.
I’d rather weigh down my pockets with stones,
embrace a hair shirt with arms trembling for a lover I don’t have,
shield my eyes from searching gazes that want to know
if I am “okay”
than put the hole in me on display
for their condolences to supposedly fill.
I am alone when I see his still form,
I am alone when I cross dad off the Christmas shopping list.
I will be alone when the flowers die
in a burst of fragrant sacrifice
and leave their bright skeletons across the carpet.
And I will be alone when the pillars holding me up
dissolve into oceans without waves or a shoreline.
//untitled #2
It wasn’t meant to stay here.
A black box sits carelessly atop the microwave,
among napkins, cookie crumbs, and cast-off playdo—
the last transmission we’ll never hear.
Alone at home while my family endures work or schooling,
I reheat tasteless burritos under its watch.
It wasn’t meant to stay here.
The wreckage leaves dead flower petals underfoot
and I avoid them like a careful elephant.
I wonder if it’s like touching flour
or virgin sand
or silica.
I wonder if it’s like hearing a rough hand rub five-o’clock shadow
or the rush of a rain stick
or leaves slapping each other in a windstorm.
I wonder if it’s something more poetic
than the leftovers of a person’s incinerated body,
if I’d hear that too-loud laugh when I opened the box
or see the flash of a smile.
It wasn’t meant to stay here,
and I will keep wondering.
