Confronting my father’s body

In exquisite silence, alone in the vast emptiness 

Of a small room in the funeral home.

His rigid body, his eyes 

Diminished, sunken, closed 

Tight like the fists of a child.

His feet were exposed and cold

Outside of the blanket 

Covering his body.

I spoke, not to him, 

For I was all too aware of his absence,

But to his memory.

This fragile new thing

Like a soap bubble

On the fingertip,

Beheld in my mind

With the care of a new father

Holding his first child.

I promised to try

To live up to his example, like a constellation of myths 

Surrounding my unsure navigation.

I promised to keep 

His memory alive,

Like an exiled country within me.

I promised to remember

His counsel, like a weighty royal letter

Stamped closed in red wax.

I spoke to his memory as a father;

How our fragile persona fades,

And fate frees us from our masks.

The final fact of our body remains,

Remains our dreams

Turned to ashes.

I spoke to his memory as a son;

Serene sphinx sleeping, 

Dreaming of particles,

The sun-god pulls his chariot

Across the mind’s sky into the evening of regret,

As resentment fades with the twilight.

The skull sinks like a setting sun

Over the body of the earth

Until peace settles in the land of memory.

I spoke to his memory as a friend,

Face to face, we prated

About the prodigal son's return.

Face to face, we enthused

Over his eighty-yard shot

On the 9th hole for an eagle.

Face to face, we chatted

Basking in each other’s presence,

Smiling so close to our mortal bodies.