Under the leaden morning light
through the blistered lens
of ice, he went in February
slipped carrying his bronze casket
up the hill, six men dressed in black
trekked like penguins
through the worst whiteout
Western, NY had seen in years
Heard my mother crying
on the phone
as the gust of freedom
blew through me; knowing he was gone
felt like a flash
of gold coins that clanged
upon hitting the ground
You never met my father,
with his tourmaline temper,
it would explain everything;
my growing dependence on you
how I dissolve like a pill
if you won’t look at me
how I talk just to keep talking
when you’re angry,
how that sense of amnesty
fell like a column of ash
that smelled foul and bitter
This house, the one in my dreams, still whiffs
of the smoke and fire of uncertainty,
fury turned inward; maybe part of me
followed him into that icy February haze,
father and son unsettled;
the man that could have been strong,
adventurous, and daring, arrested
somewhere around puberty;
the life that might have been
a mosaic neither of us will know.
