Vol 10, Num 20 :: 2011.11.11 — 2011.11.24
Oops. We seem to be missing that image file.
November 7, 2011
A house of mourning
Or of mirth? Enter both. It
Will be the same door.
August 29
the dream, the sort you
claw to stay asleep — you, sick;
me, your care to keep
June 21
at Aldi i feel
you amidst the aisles, amazed
at all the bargains
at home i shift some
cans you bought, and smile to reap
this happy harvest
June 9
you in your boxers
and banyan*, eating melons;
rinds curved like your smile
in summers, eating
melons with you; cool like an
evening in eden
* a Punjabi word for an a-shirt
June 6
into illinois,
traveling old roads; driving
past into present
April 25
we always had two
minds on rain; its lovely greys,
its melancholy
in the chair asleep;
the afghan nestling legs that
always found the breeze
we take lunch and tea,
the rain still falling; your smile
to me like sunshine
April 2
landscape collapsing;
a mine subsiding; the face
of someone weeping
March 18
oh, come the day that
backward cheers all our weathers;
eternal sunshine
March 18
my gas bills lower;
patching through winter, doing
without you to warm
March 13
now the sod is like
patchwork from grandma’s quilts; you
sleeping till the Day
February 12
in this hard steel town
black and white and brown; smelted,
at the dmv
at the dmv,
waiting, waiting, waiting, for
the freedom to move
we have science now
for grief to travel; hearing
his cell phone ringer
February 9
when at dusk the day
collapses, i feel the weight;
light pressed into dark
escaping the crush
of dusk, the light emerges,
settling into stars
January 28
medicine boxes
no longer measuring days
sit still on the sill
December 16
upon tickling
he’d laugh and smile; silliness
serious as death
December 1
I miss you. Eager.
Hello Kitty, horses, cars.
Target dollar aisle.
November 9
coming home at dusk,
leaves sunk into dimness; my
father’s weary voice
coming home at dusk,
incandescent greeting; my
father’s cheery voice
November 7, 2010
After a lovely indolent Sunday in which we rest and eat and watch television together, in which he talks to each of his grandchildren and sons, my father calls me back from visiting with friends in the evening with a fear-filled voice. An ambulance comes and within two hours a doctor finishes her hushed visit with me and my brother with the words, “And then he did die.”
The picture at the head of this piece is the second to last picture I ever took of my father, taken on that day. He is standing in his beloved patch of kitchen sunlight. He is feeling a whole lot more of that now.
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