Where once a man
I
got the call—“your father died, they bury him on
Friday”
I
think he thought I didn’t like him. There were some reasons.
Once
he put his hand on my girlfriend’s thigh, said he knew she wanted “it”.
She
told me without rancor, forgiving an old man.
I
forgave him too. I’m not sure he knew that.
And
there were other things, some harder to forgive, that we won’t speak of here.
It
wasn’t true—I loved him. First for all the things he taught me:
Little
things like how to calculate the distance to the stars
And
big things too.
I
went of course. I booked a flight and car, drove two hundred miles,
Got
there just in time. The little church.
The
doleful undertaker. Fifty people who had known him.
The
unctuous preacher said some words.
They
handed me his ashes in a box.
I
saw something that day I won’t forget:
Among
the people gathered there, and in myself,
A
man-shaped hole
Where
once a man had been.
©
2018