The Day His Dad Died
for PK
The phone rings and the news
swells and pitches like a sleeper
tossing on his thin mattress
of goodbyes. Your father
lay down, jabbed his pale finger
into the belly of air, which for him
disappeared into the bright lamp
in the ER. You should have
never seen his face that an orderly
pulled from a drawer, his head
propped on a brick, eyelids drooped
above his reaped eyes. Listen
to him sway away from the sky
overhead, trying one last time
to kick through the brambles
between you. The room left
his face like a whisker
or an ache. He was always
receding. You did not see
his meek wave stir the air.
Vault
It’s not because she grew tired
of sand, tired of its gritty
prayer for water, or of growing
tan by the sun and camouflaged
with the unending rocks. It was the
other desert she had to get out of, so
she packed her child and their roughened
skin into blue pullovers and blue jeans
and vaulted them out of that desert
where they discovered themselves
preening in a mirror of river
pooled beside this grassy bank, stunned
by so much water – this fast-moving,
wild iris-lined stream. They kicked off
their shoes, squished the muddy
banks between their toes. She fondled
the small sticks the child collected
and brought to her. They rattled
like dice in her hands.
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