A Final Goodbye


When the ashes that had been my father,
but were no longer my father 
(he who was gone but still
my father),

when the ashes had joined the great circling
of the globe that is the ocean and all its life
and death and time time time that flows
past man's limits, being before and after 

what man is,
when the ashes had gone, I was left
with a voice which loved to argue 
but had grown silent deprived of its

favorite conversational adversary
who was now molecules rejoining 
the great chain of life, the endless flowing
which nurtures all life and joins generations.

Did his courage go with him,
that brave man who looked death in the eye
with an indifference born of the sea,
coming as he did from seafaring stock?

Did his love of over sixty years go with him,
filling the ocean with a passion
which would birth new life
and one final series of questions:

this grief, this constant melancholy, this 
inconsolable loss, is it for the ashes afloat
in the ocean, is it for the man who was and is
no more, is it for the woman left alone, 

is it merely a selfish song sung as a child's lament
of me me me me me why did you leave me,
as if cancer were a choice and old age avoidable?
Ebb and flow in peace deep within your new home.

Previously published in Bellowing Ark (2010)



Save the Last Dance for Me
Khilda, Amman, Jordan 1992-1993
​
Ah, the Drifters in full voice
and I'm seventeen — standing
and watching, always
watching while others carom
lightly through the steps,
those beautiful, awful twists
and turns where the young
find the doors to the world,
glide through and find
themselves forty with three kids,
a serious job, a house with car,
swimming pool, t.v. set,
and a spouse still dancing, only
now the steps of each
leave deep imprints on the floor
and ignore the direction of the other.

And I, I'm still back outside that first door;
I never did find a way to join the dance
that ushered my friends into the world.
The faint music of memory steadily dims,
my chest constricts, and all life
whirls past — jostling, tumbling,
turning, rude, noisy, and painful — 
as I stand and watch untouched,
unseen, forgotten, still
trying to learn the words to the damn song,
trying to execute a few simple steps.


Previously published in A Stranger to the Land (Garden Street Press, 1997)



That Hand which was Never Withdrawn
Abu Dhabi, 1991

Night torn apart, my mother storming out the trailer,
my father trying to comfort four terrified children
who blamed him — not understanding poverty maims
even the kindest hearts.  Eventually my mother returned
and my parents clung, each to the other, for hours.
I, ten, cursed my father till I slept.

Next day after school my father waited
with the old Willy's jeep to pick me up.  I cursed
him again, slapped away his encircling arm.  Minutes of silence.

"We must talk sooner or later."  His voice
was barely audible.  "I hate you," I said.  "I hate you
and will never talk to you again."  I glanced at him:
his face caved in, his eyes lost down the country road.
His voice floated up from some deep cavern or well
where people go when pain is too great for daylight.

"Michael, you will be my son for years.  No matter 
what you say or do, you will always be my son.
And I love you."  I looked out the window in disgust.

Thirty-six years later and fifteen thousand miles from home,
I stare at the rare sight of rain falling
on the sands of Abu Dhabi.
Next door parents and children scream in Arabic
and the universal language of pain.  I reach
for that hand which was never withdrawn.  I find
only damp air and oceans between us.

First published in The Plastic Tower (circa 1995)