A year back the phone imploded the silence
3:00 AM
A trembling voice released
Itself of words we knew would
Be spoken
In time
Yet none would have confessed the thought
Well….

Tense grey morning
The family gathered pensive
Surrounding the sterile intensive care bed
His home for 39 days
He lay
Heaving artificial
Needle bruised arms
Pale yellow body
Godforsaken

Numb grief
A gift bestowed
Questions unformed
Stroke his
Corn silk hair
Touch his nailess right thumb
Courtesy of an ax
When a boy
At his beardless chin
Shaven by necessity
At his hula girl
From the war
Knowing she will dance no more
At the ******* tubes
****** into holes
Where none should be

Soon suffering gives sway

Two days hence morning early
Threat of rain
We drove the quiet mile
Past the sanatorium
The orange water tower
The yellow house
The old Bayless farm
Up the winding gravel road
To Gouffon’s Cemetery
A rural small hilltop
Place of rest

Giant oak trees
Green fertile pastures
Blue distant mountains
Standing near red dirt
I recall Dad and I
Pounding tomato stakes into the
Compromising earth
Laying out plots for the family

On future Sunday outings when
Visiting this sublime place of relatives pass
Dad would often say as he smoked his Lucky Strike

“Some day I will rest here…with your mother there beside me”

Dad
For a long while I could
Envision you as you are even now
24 years later
With mom’s wedding band on your little finger
A pack of smokes and a half pint of Maker’s Mark
Photographs of the family propped against the pale creamy silk
To comfort you while you wait

The first year
Filled with dreams of you
Assuring
Gentle
“Son…it’s all right…everything is fine here”

Of you lying with plastic violating
Chest stomach neck
Not being able to speak
Bleeding
Asking me to **** you

Now

I giggle with fear and joy and
Love as you swim the Little Sandy
With my cheek meshed into the give
Of your shoulder blade and
My little arms and legs
Grasping for dear life
Around your flawless
Impregnable
Body