~for my father~*

I.

My neighbor Dave
had a hose in his hand,
standard garden, green,
almost like a movie.

His driveway was bright black
the white rocks of our backyard
meant something, standing so close.

Always moving so fast toward another
direction. The memory of the flowers
at sunset, when I learned what the word
“bloom” meant. It wasn’t real.

We used the hose to freeze water
over the rocks in the winter.
This was our sliding,
our skitting into older.

That Christmas
all I wanted was a bicycle.
The house gave up no secrets.
Closer and closer to Christmas,
I found so many presents.
I never found the bicycle.

This was how to measure love

I went to bed so angry that year,
lost in thoughts of running
to a world of backyard ice and bicycles.

In the morning when I saw it,
they confessed Dave’s involvement
He had hidden the bicycle.
Dave’s smile became
something else after that.

I learned to ride slowly,
tumbled down a hill
in blood and tears.
My father carried me home
and our bikes. I’ve never known
how he did it.


II.

Years later and later still.
I don’t know what happened
to that bicycle. It was black
fading easily.

Even though I likely lost it
in the first eviction,
or maybe the second,
the third. I don’t think I left it
after the fire. Maybe I still dream of it.

Later still. I stopped speaking
to my father. It was both our faults.
We both blamed someone
else for three years.

When I saw him again
he was fatherly. Unusual.
He wanted to make sure I was okay.
He wanted to make sure I had everything
I needed. I told him I needed
food and a bicycle. We went out
to get these together. He smiled.

In the dreams,
People come with whips
in pickup trucks. They carry
My childhood away
like a so-frightened horse.
In the dreams,

this time, the bicycle was red.
I don’t think of him when I ride it.
I hardly think of him.

This is how you measure love.

Those were the dreams where we ride off
childhood friends and I.
We ride off to where it is red, blooming red.