Gerry

Poem for my father

I've never written a poem for you, Dad.

Never even written a poem about you-

though, to be fair, I haven't written one

about mom either, and she and I are

kind of closer, always have been.

Perhaps that's why your absence

wasn't such a

shock in my life.

The move from the house was years away,

gradual. The family room still smelled like you

for years, even though there was no more smoking

in the house,

even after we gutted the wood paneling

and ripped up the carpet and changed

everything.

I've not forgotten about you

or blocked you out,

but you haven't been a part of my life

or in my thoughts for a long time.

This sounds awful.

Mom is so awkward whenever I mention you.

I know the two of you never got along. I know

there was no love there

but I forgave you two for that

even when you were still here.

Dad, the night you died

I thought everyone was gathered at the house

to throw you a surprise birthday party.

And when everyone left to go to the morgue-

they didn't say morgue, they said hospital-

I made chewy fudge brownies with a cream cheese swirl.

I made two kinds of pudding,

pistachio and vanilla, and set them

in those individual plastic molds

for no one to eat the next day.

I made a mess of the kitchen

and no one told me to clean up.

We don't have those plastic pudding molds anymore.

I don't know what happened to them, I'm sorry.

And I don't remember if you had a cake

waiting in the fridge, or what happened

to your unopened birthday presents.

I don't remember what your hands felt like

on my shoulder, or what your voice sounded like

outside of a video recording,

which is false memory

because everyone sounds strange in those.

I don't even remember where your headstone is.

I went to the graveyard two years ago on Father's Day.

I tried to use the memory of your funeral like a map

but all I could see were the rifles from the

twenty-one gun salute. I thought it was cheap

how there weren't twenty-one colorguards, only three,

who shot their guns seven times each.

I kept one of the bullet shells

but I've lost it sometime in the past thirteen years.

Just like that lock of your hair I pulled

from your stiff scalp at the wake.

I meant to press it in a book,

but I forgot and it was picked up

by the filter in the washing machine.

The strands were marigold blonde

and brittle as an old strip of film.

Mom says that she was a blonde child,

but at my age it darkened

to an inky brown. She thought mine would, too

but, just in case you were

wondering, Dad,

what the adult version of me

looks like,

it hasn't.

Reviews

[Patient Poet (Yos)]

OMG ..... I must thank Suze (a wonderful poet herself! ) to send me to read your poetry .... that one is so honest and real , the kind I love so much to read and dive into your world ... I wrote a peom when my dad pass away ... we weerent close either , I regret it now

[Suze]

This is one of my favorites of yours. I adore how it ends, with how you kept your blonde hair just like your Dad's. It makes me cry every time. I have no idea what the pain of losing a parent is like, but you express the confusion of a young girl losing her Dad so well. I like how you talk about how your Dad is no longer in your daily life's range of thought so much, too. Grief is a weird thing, different for each person and each loss - you capture it so well in this poem. Love ya!