I catch you in reflections–the small ones
that hint at a sense, be it smell or taste or touch
the smell of your sweat, bent over the tractor
the taste of Old Style on my small lips, just a sip
the feel of your long daddy arms twice around me
whenever I called to you
a hint of pink on a blossom falling
to the grass, your cheeks, alive
a light refracting on water, just a ripple,
your blue eyes calling to me from somewhere
I’ve vaguely dreamed about, a haven of sorts
where I was once somebody’s
my reflection as I pass by a mirror
in a blur, I see how this body came
from yours, I am your limbs,
when it’s quiet sometimes
I see all the pieces of you
you are not your grave, not those
ashes we spread on the river
you were mine once briefly
and I was yours and that
makes my heart heavy and
then light, all the
what if’s
what if you had stayed
what would you have taught me
I remember how you tried, you
cried in front of my new dad
and walked away to live in your car
and drink your drink
you tried to put us into pieces
you could hold onto
faded photos of babies
in your wallet
you fought for us in a slurred
tongue,
but for us
that was the best we’d ever get
gentle, shy, scared father
I loved you
I loved you
you’re in all these little pieces
of my life,
never absent now
as you rustle and hush through
petals at my feet.
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****picture of my real dad, John, my sister Nikki on the left and me, the freaked out one, on the right. He didn’t care for me that much and he left me to always help my sister (he didn’t believe I was his at first or something) so my mom and Aunt C say, but my other Aunt J says how much he loved us, even if it was for a short while, he loved us. And that fills quite a gap in my chest. His love from what…two years…is enough to help me get over the “unlove” from the next father figure. Doesn’t make up for all that I lost and gained, nor the fact that there is some irreparable damage done to me, but hey, I’m not asking for too much. He loved me then. He loved me. Aunt J told me last week on the anniversary of his death that I have my dad’s beautiful, dark eyes and long lashes. No one’s ever told me I had anything of his. I cried because I was so happy. I have his eyes. Despite the comb-over and goggle glasses, he actually was a handsome guy. This one time, after not talking for years (decades) I found him in a bar, and I sat and had a beer with him, I had a beer with my daddy, and he took out the pictures of my sisters and I in his old wallet, and he knew somehow where we were living and what our jobs were. He was like an excited child that I was sitting with him. There was no past or future there, we were just blood relatives having a beer, wishing for so much from each other and not knowing what that was.
