Strangers

      At three, on vacation, my mother and I alone

      on an aerial tour (two seats, no exceptions),

      my father waving until he was very small

      then unfolding the paper from under his armpit,

      I wept with the depth of the assured—

      the Ruahine Range irrelevant below.

      My mother asked, coddled, pleaded.

      The pilot offered ridiculous faces,

      an early return. Only in the sight

      of my father, rising from a bench beside

      the helipad, hand raised again in greeting,

      was my world, pulled apart, reassembled.

      Nine years later his hand, warm,

      was thirty minutes later cold. I watched

      him wheeled away. I held his ashes

      and wondered where to put them.

      And I waited for his return.

      I wait still, whatever sense it makes.

      Alright, okay, we do not live forever. Our works

      are lost and are not found. There is no consolation.

      But, Elise, I read your poems today.

      Each rose and greeted me as if everything

      was normal, as if my return had been expected.

      And in this act I saw my father.

      It makes no sense. You would be strangers

      if not for this. But I saw him, Elise.

      He was your poems.

      He was waving and becoming larger.