06-24-2014, 11:29 AM
Newest Version 6/23/14
i. after
I’ve always wondered:
if father dreamed, did he remember
his own name?
He’s buried now with a whirligig
beside his plot, a headstone etched
with his name and dates so others
will remember him, even if he couldn’t
His last years were beach sand,
a gift to be blown away; Alzheimer’s
was how his distance widened,
how all his names moved
farther and farther away
Sometimes, when I visited, I wondered
whether he was ashamed he could dream
at all.
ii. before
His hands hold the new electric razor;
they can no longer be trusted
to a straight edge. He reminds me oddly
of an older model: boned,
an old toy to be forgotten
in a deep closet. Pocked skin,
arms as if from a child’s drawing.
He asks me how to use it and puts it to his face,
as if wanting to scrape thin frost from a windshield.
No, here, Dad. Let me show you.
He watches in the mirror as I guide his finger
to the on/off switch, says with a cold-fact delivery:
I used to do this kind of stuff for you.
iii. during
Father never took slow showers,
nor did I ever ask him about his dreams
between bites of raisin toast
glazed with Skippy peanut butter.
He never went religious, not even after Lisa;
I often fell asleep with his Twin Cities voice
on the radio, statically, like grains of salt,
selling London Luggage hand bags
or used cars from towns named Cadott
or Chippewa Falls, towns that have supplied
the world with cozy children for generations.
I considered him a genius in our city
by the river near the clumps of birch
iv. funeral
You know this wasn’t the person I wanted
you to be at the end;
all the while I watched you die, I wondered:
what is there after such an experience?
It was like waiting for a deep voice to say:
It’s your turn. Come in.
But you respond,
No, no, no. It’s too soon. It’s...too soon.
At the funeral, your life had a new angle,
like my eyes had twisted a bit in their sockets;
one of your breaths once contained
all the air a Mayfly breathes in its lifetime.
v. lore
Like Lazerus, Father rose
from the basement at two am,
not knowing who he was,
carrying a suitcase filled
with red-and-white towels;
he had hit the bottom
of his bag of discretion.
He once squeezed a cereal bag
so hard it exploded;
Rice Krispies sprayed across
my kitchen like all the items
he had recently forgotten:
two thousand details about mother;
all the leaves we raked and burned together
at the Beach Road house; one or two regrets
he may have had about me;
the names of his grandchildren.
We went for a walk once. Only a block.
Around the corner from the memory house.
A mere 330 feet away, he no longer trusted
me; it was here where his known and unknown
parted, passing through our remaining time
like a rope that ties its own knots.
i. after
I’ve always wondered:
if father dreamed, did he remember
his own name?
He’s buried now with a whirligig
beside his plot, a headstone etched
with his name and dates so others
will remember him, even if he couldn’t
His last years were beach sand,
a gift to be blown away; Alzheimer’s
was how his distance widened,
how all his names moved
farther and farther away
Sometimes, when I visited, I wondered
whether he was ashamed he could dream
at all.
ii. before
His hands hold the new electric razor;
they can no longer be trusted
to a straight edge. He reminds me oddly
of an older model: boned,
an old toy to be forgotten
in a deep closet. Pocked skin,
arms as if from a child’s drawing.
He asks me how to use it and puts it to his face,
as if wanting to scrape thin frost from a windshield.
No, here, Dad. Let me show you.
He watches in the mirror as I guide his finger
to the on/off switch, says with a cold-fact delivery:
I used to do this kind of stuff for you.
iii. during
Father never took slow showers,
nor did I ever ask him about his dreams
between bites of raisin toast
glazed with Skippy peanut butter.
He never went religious, not even after Lisa;
I often fell asleep with his Twin Cities voice
on the radio, statically, like grains of salt,
selling London Luggage hand bags
or used cars from towns named Cadott
or Chippewa Falls, towns that have supplied
the world with cozy children for generations.
I considered him a genius in our city
by the river near the clumps of birch
iv. funeral
You know this wasn’t the person I wanted
you to be at the end;
all the while I watched you die, I wondered:
what is there after such an experience?
It was like waiting for a deep voice to say:
It’s your turn. Come in.
But you respond,
No, no, no. It’s too soon. It’s...too soon.
At the funeral, your life had a new angle,
like my eyes had twisted a bit in their sockets;
one of your breaths once contained
all the air a Mayfly breathes in its lifetime.
v. lore
Like Lazerus, Father rose
from the basement at two am,
not knowing who he was,
carrying a suitcase filled
with red-and-white towels;
he had hit the bottom
of his bag of discretion.
He once squeezed a cereal bag
so hard it exploded;
Rice Krispies sprayed across
my kitchen like all the items
he had recently forgotten:
two thousand details about mother;
all the leaves we raked and burned together
at the Beach Road house; one or two regrets
he may have had about me;
the names of his grandchildren.
We went for a walk once. Only a block.
Around the corner from the memory house.
A mere 330 feet away, he no longer trusted
me; it was here where his known and unknown
parted, passing through our remaining time
like a rope that ties its own knots.