Dad,
Remember the shrew? The one
that ran in front of us like a wind-up
cat toy, the one we later realized
contained venom,
which did not stop
me at 9? 10?
One of the curious years
from chasing after it,
letting it bite me.
Dad,
You never scolded me about touching
such things, sinking my selfish hands into
mucky waters to unearth crayfish,
bullfrogs, snapping turtles that chewed on my fingertips
you never fussed over the mounds of moss in the cup holders
of the car, dirt on the car seats
The little plot of the backyard I cried
at you not to mow, in the hopes of
farming toads.
Dad,
Remember the nest of spiders in my window?
How I screamed anxiously while you
calmly explained their wondrousness,
how useful they were in the garden
and where exactly they fit in the animal kingdom.
And how you killed them for me anyway.
Dad,
Your best gifts to me were these:
1. A squirrel's tail, which you had kept
in the shed patiently awaiting my next arrival
to see you, thinking I would have some use
for one lone, severed part of road kill.
A hornet's nest, a particularly marvelous rock.
The strange remnants of nature
you'd thought I'd like.
2. All of the animal sightings, procured daily,
the only thing that made your job at all interesting
saved for me like a rolodex of
spotted groundhogs, chipmunks, possums
presented as small offerings,
like a mouse on my doorstep,
a reminder that I was in your thoughts
still.
3. A drafting set, unearthed from the depths
of your own dreams deferred,
You taught me several years ago how to hold
the pencil, how to spin it, twirl it to keep
its fine point.
4. A curious brain, an overactive brain
and the need to keep it occupied with
tinkering, and how such a thing was healthy and even
necessary.
The only way you will receive this poem is telepathically.
Dad,
I wake up from dreams of you dead already
ones from which I awake screaming and sweaty
Its the future now
I have crow's feet and a child in tow
There you are in a hospital bed, the sight
of you in that little johnny pulls at me like nothing
else, your suffering has always been my sensitivity.
You have only moments more to be with us
before you're whisked away into the paranormal
before you're waving to us from where we can no
longer see you,
I have only these last moments to talk to you
and yet there's nothing to be said.
As usual, silence speaks loudest and first.
This is where I wake up every time.
I bawl uncontrollably, call Mom, tell her to
make you see a doctor
and tell her to be good to you, to look past
your loudness, your bad ear, your senility
that's grown these last few years.
I see how sad you are, how old age snuck
up on you unexpected; your true self ransacked
and replaced with this old man
you do not recognize, a body that fails you
in more ways than even mentionable,
a mind that feels like someone else's, someone
sloppy and forgetful. Certainly this is
not you.
The real you, that true self,
is the forty something that climbed over
wet rocks and tide pools like nothing,
the man who hiked nature trails
to watch his daughter
-long before she sprouted her own gray hair-
speed after a blind shrew running,
long before the bite of Life
firmly sank its teeth in,
venomous as ever.
FOR MY FATHER, ON HIS BIRTHDAY.
