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the father

had heard
and seen

everything the boy
had ever thought;
had done
and said –

that’s what the low-budget documentary
on Amazon Prime told him.

it was all outlined
in a big ULINE box with no lid
full of labelled duo-tangs stacked the wrong way
on the top shelf –
no less important than all the rest –
to whom the spirits kindly regressed.
the father didn’t necessarily ask for all this.
all he did was ask

and he was met with

and where maybe once he permitted himself to forget some things
based on nature,
his age,
now he knew everything.
that was the curse of the dead
and their wistless blessing

and when his son-in-law finally died
after much waiting,
forgetting, and re-remembering
and the father was finally able to confront him,
he asked,
“why did you say
and think
such horrible things about my kid?”

the boy confessed that she irritated the
ever-loving shit out of him
and that he should know,
because for a time, she lived with him.
that’s what he was saying to him –

“i never had an ego when i just wanted to be heard.
at the end of the day,
that’s what i was saying to you all.”

the silence that followed
that once was common between the two
in life
was numbing –

“if you really were as selfish as you behaved, you could have ended
your own pain
years ago.
you even took that step, too –
don’t lie, i know.
instead you made a choice to wait it through.”
he understood what the boy had done,
but this attitude he couldn’t condone:
“all you really wanted was to be left alone.
tell me i’m wrong.”

the boy could not deny
that maybe things for her
were easier now that he had died –

“here you go again about death and dying –
no one wanted to read about it
or hear about your take on the lagniappes of suicide.”
it wasn’t the father’s voice anymore:
it was his own –
“are you a refugee from the Ukraine?
from Israel or Palestine?
Venezuela? Mexico?
anywhere else travel agents warn you not to go?
were you touched as a child?”
if i was i can’t place it

but sometimes i can
of possibly being maltreated
at a babysitter’s in my single-digits:
if anyone ever asked for my earliest memory,
it’s napping on a back-door step
on top of a prickly old shoe mat
like a pet –

“but you really don’t recall whether that happened or not?”
to be totally honest with you,
i do not,
nor whether it was my choice or not.
it’s been since birth that i’ve been a nut,
and you can’t have the preponderance without the evidence to back it up –

“and life was better then,
than it had ever been?
who do you think you have to thank for such compassion and generosity?
the stars? the signs?
someone else’s deity?
my daughter’s love was your only tangibility.”
this limbo doesn’t change anything
if i’ve already damned myself
for eternity –

“don’t argue with me.
you have to find a way to scratch the itch
without being a total dick.”

//wd 5.15.2024

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