being disharmonious
with the whisper of death,
my father sentiently orchestrates
his final moments.

the cancer enfolds, unbending;
inverting throughout him like a small womb
unfolding the fabric of his universe.
his torso ebbs with these insatiable flowers.
he is born again into death knowing love,
dreaming his journey into being. his children
shedding symphonies of his laughter
are woven into silence; as he dies
a fully spread bouquet—beautiful
in the face of surreptitious sabotage.
it must be cumbersome for him. to grow
backwardly. still, though—outwardly,
he hefts it peacefully. dying a mountain—
symphonic—and in bloom.

He smiles with the graces of crumbling eyebrows,
with wit, megalithic in the cavern behind
his unformed eyes; i lowered mine, seeking
elsewhere—that here as i sleep, he is formed
from half memory.

The better part of me
remembers him in increments, steadily handed

our orchard, our healthy fruit. His arms overladen
with fibrous molten undulating movement,
a cacophonous cocoon for my madness’

half love. The truer part of me
remembers him as mountainous, thunderous,
a storm eating into the distances. arms
kneading throughout time, becoming. stone.

a dimple of great sadness yawns wide,
a timid fawn, eyes and ears small pearls

and it exists only in my body, mourning
lethargy. morning becomes lethargy,
a heavy predator. without commander
or command, it commences. flowering
into living sleep, i obey, when it beckons

primordially. the sky’s cerulean fingers
all sag. backwardly, blossoming
into muteness, all color
is fed to the inescapable

darkness. hand-fed inwardly, it is a gaping
thirst in the sea of unquenchable
hunger. i do not love it; it mimics

moonlight. the limpid doe,
a crystalline annihilator,

havocs the flower
to furlough the meadow
into the silence,
and into the black.

meandering the chorus of his scent, i am lost
between the steeple of his belly
and his mouth

i wander. consuming his pleasure  with teeth,
softly, as though he were a baby bird.


i worship the sunrise in his neck. on all fours,
i pray that the sun sets between us
beautifully. maybe in another life, we

could be a temple of a shared two bodies,
twilight after twilight, upright, hand in hand.

but as it is, tonguing the canyons, the valleys
the napes, and the summits
       his mouth
becomes melody. singing without words
that he will encapsulate me. wholly

much like a tremendous hunter. but gently,
with purpose alight, we surrender. together,

shared steeples above our carnage, heaving.
the doorway to mutual softness   open

this is not my life. we are fighting, as though
we are happy, but.my dad is
dying. i love him. as though i am a child.
as though i were a sapling at his root.
as though i were a construct of his being
as i am
i am
happy. as though i am a child. i am giving
as i will not take what i cannot give him
in his grave. he is wilting, as i realize i am
alive, and i will give him every inch of every
root that i am, constructed on the skeleton
he has given me. with life. within himself
as he is
he is
happy. as though he were a child forever.
as though he were a mighty spread tree.
as though we could love each other
beyond the end.