Sitting at the kitchen table with my father
discussing the importance of the questions
I must ask a dying man.
He says
the answers will die with him, you know.
The answers will die soon, too.
He says,
I am the only one he'd release them to,
the only one capable of fishing out
all those repressed memories
of an only brother
who took his own life decades back.
He strains to put emphasis on a diminishing time frame
choking back tears
for the inevitable loss of his
father in law
the father he chose
whilst I'm flashing back to twenty minutes prior,
discussing his detachment from his own father by blood.
I am sitting at the kitchen table with my father
It's 1 am,
and we are now both choking back tears
discussing the questions I will ask a dying man.