It's like that mole
excised when I was small
The one my parents feared
would mar my appearance, 
turn cancerous 
or become a focal point –
a tree obscuring the forest –
of my face, no one can see
but I can still feel it, 
that tiny absence, the lingering 
almost invisible depression.

for my father
 
To be in your skin, I put on your favorite animal,
adjust the strap on the tiger hat:
the pink nose rimmed with black, 
sharp fangs, the stately stripes. 
Your large paws are ghosts
on my shoulders: they weigh me down, 
they lift me up. I wear 
your paisley robe with royal blue
lining. Satin, fancier than you
ever aspired to. Another skin. 
I am still discovering
as I dig through the pockets
of your cast-off clothes.

I remember you after midnight 
waking with some ache or pain,
struggling with breath –
how the nurses came,
offered morphine,
 
how I struggled, in my own pain –
the breadth of responsibility 
so wide – between your suffering 
and what we had to gain –
 
by keeping you another night
in the morning to begin again,
 
for what few hours you had left,
not knowing you were so close to flight:
a breakfast of peaches – canned, not fresh –
all that they could find. A last cleansing bath, 
a rite, a story I read aloud while you rested. 
 
You chose the moment and left; 
I searched in vain for your breath.