What I wonder now is why my father registered
for the class— the only one I know he took,
his years of schooling over, incomplete. What
did he hope to learn of people when he disliked
everyone? Estranged from his siblings,
without friends, he lived on an island offshore
from family, neighborhood, coworkers.

I try to imagine him studying this text
by Klara Roman, its explanations of loops
and spacing, pressure and direction, to enter
that gateway to reveal someone’s true nature
and unconscious, the secret, sacred heart
of someone he loved. Who?

He showed me his three-page autobiography
in the careful penmanship I knew so well.
In this document showcasing his life’s highlights,
he lists the Ethical Culture Fieldston School,
Grumman, his stamp collection. He omits his wife
and daughters, proving

he never attended to our style or rhythms,
our speed or alignment. Did he notice the height
or width of our characters? Pressure of our pens?
Years later, he sent back my letters, red ink
circling my every error.

Mechanical draftsman, he liked to say,
though he never finished night college.
He drew screws and pipes that showed the way
for plumbers, men with other knowledge
whose parents also arrived in steerage.
He trudged to Sheepshead Bay station to save
bus fare, wrapped newspapers around his legs
under suit pants in cold weather. A slave
to his family, he would have said. Laid-off
when government contracts folded, he stalked
offices where a tall suit might not scoff
at a little man without a job. He hawked
his skills and walked Manhattan’s dirty streets,
balked at Friday dinners without meat.

My father’s dead more than thirty years,
a sudden exit by his hand, left a mess
for his daughters to untangle. I confess
I cleaned spilled blood and brains, without tears
as I mopped the gore. What would happen
to my mother now, so sick she couldn’t
make a cup of tea? His final act wouldn’t
let me see him as better than some dragon
breathing fire on my youthful pleasure.
But there was a moment in the story
when he opened, told me he was sorry,
and shared his woe and a bit of treasure.
That window closed, a plot point I erase.
In memoir, we choose details we will trace.