Fathers,
Sons, and Ghosts
He lies there
clothed in a warm, familiar darkness as I, still awake, observe the
subtle, steady ebb and flow of a pale bare back, his quiet breaths
summoning soft beams of vague heavenly light drifting through the
window panes, which leave shadows like scars across his skin.
They are so much
more like children when they sleep.
Even in the dark,
especially in the dark, his room is an orphan boy’s: half-boxed promises collect
dust in the corners, blank, white walls stare back, unresponsive to
the clean or dirty crumpled boxers, the wrinkled silk tie.
Even less
distressed over that hole—the one where a
crucifix used to hang over his mattress—the crucifix he replaced
one restless night with a worn leather belt—the belt that just
wasn’t strong enough.
Of course, who am I
to say, but I know it’s his father—the unholy ghost who shares
this room with him in the dark, the one with the blank white wall
stare. The one who knew how to take
it like a man and get angry. The one who’d be with him always, to
the end of time.
And now, his son, a
sleeping child, knows he’ll never be a god.
And I, searching in
the blackness for a man who’s barely there, for a man who’s
barely a man, whisper to his back like a mother to her sleeping child, “Yes, you’re just a man, but if you let me, I’ll be your
savior.”
Another poem turned short story. I like the idea of punctuating the collection with shorter more abstract pieces, but I'm still not convinced this one has a place in the collection. Not gonna rule it out, though.
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