Watching you grow old and die
Was like watching myself vanish --Your skin like paper,
Your lips thin and chapped,
Your breath a raspy ghost
Who’d lost his way
In a decimated garden.
Your breath used to soar in church choirs
Till your body was ravaged
And despair nearly flung you
Down concrete stairs.
A confused nurse
Who’d stumbled upon you
Asked why you stared
Down empty flights,
Omnipotent and terrified.
She saved your life that day
So that you could die a different death
With 3 sons at your side.
After a life of loneliness and regret,
Your last words
"I love you"
Spoken so tenderly
Released everything.
Then, your head cranked back and
Your mouth gaping,
Death swept you out the black window.
I kissed your brittle bones.
In the early morning
I walked through golden mist
Hovering over a field of grass.
How was it fair or right
That the world was born again?
Halted by a memory
Fastened to nothingness,
I remembered you, my father,
Forty years before
Standing behind our home
Looking into a weeping willow
Listening to the liquid song
Of a mocking bird.
Nobody but the mocking bird
Can answer my questions now.
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