an unrehearsed universe

Songs of My Father

Stooped,
the weight of the world
come to rest atop his shoulders,
the seed of fat long ago
having bloomed,
her father, an unremarkable man.

His absence loomed,
a ghoulish shade trying them
in absentia through the empty bottles
“my good friends: Mark, Jim and Jack”
clanging underfoot,
spilling from places obvious and not
closets of clothes left to molder
dishwasher of tumbler glasses
one lone, recriminating spoon
above the guestroom door
inside the kitchen nook
behind the childhood treasure chest
cradled by Goodnight Moon
and Mr. Squashy.

Small
compensatory boisterous man,
barrel-torsoed
chicken-limbed,
gregarious of deed if not of soul,
poor with expensive tastes,
her father, the quintessential barfly.

Sorry for your loss.
He was a good man
(before the drink, the corollary).
He would have loved this.
It was so sudden.
What a horrible accident!
How are you? 

Nod and smile her mother said;
his second ex-wife
and the only one of five
to show. 

What does it matter that vultures came
picking at the living
rather than mourning?
It makes him no less dead,
your father. 
And he wouldn’t have cared.

The funeral was a sham,
ended, appropriately enough,
in shambles. 

Same slope
same vat figure
same voice
same eyes but clear from sober-living
not a haunt
but the same lurch
at once confident and deferential
packed with insolence
servility
the same at double-speed. 

Her uncle his brother,
the elder by six crucial minutes
rambled interminably
a bitter rant of frustrated love
a one-sided argument he could never
win or lose again;
the mourners gorged on the buffet,
looked on indifferently,
his words battening against
the spittle and mouth breathing
and making no impression.