Not the insecure kid who had the same
ability as her honor-roll sister but
"didn't apply" herself and almost flunked
out of college after the first semester.
Not the senseless grad student dating a "punk artist"
from South Dakota who required "checking into"
by a private investigator.
Not the one who hasn't yet married a "nice, decent" man
and moved to a quiet middle-class subdivision
where dogs must leashed at all times.
Not the youngest who is going through
an eight-year "phase" of not eating meat
and takes off on trips each summer
to England, China, or the Pacific Northwest.
But the woman who teaches adults to read
and write and makes them believe their lives matter,
Who stays on the phone for hours
with a suicidal friend, knowing her voice is
the only cord holding her friend to the earth,
Who trudges out in below-zero snow to fill
the bird feeder and finds homes for stray dogs,
Who dances around fire circles to the pounding
of a drum and cries, awestruck, in redwood forests,
Who lays her hands upon the sick and sends her
spirit out to heal the living and the dead.
Now, he doesn't want to know me.
But when he dies, he will no longer
be just my dad. And I'll journey to him
in the landscape beyond death,
and sit him down, right there
on the front porch, in the $9.99 chairs,
or at the speckled kitchen table, older than me.
I'll pour us each a cup of that strong coffee
he likes with a splash of light cream and a half
a teaspoon of sugar.
Then I'll smile at him,
put out my hand, and say,
"Hi, Let me tell you about who I am."
And he'll hook my hand in the bend of his arm,
look me right in the eyes, and settle in to listen.
There, he won't turn away to watch the game,
or get up and walk to the window in the middle
of a conversation, jingling change in his pockets,
or turn his eyes back to the crossword
instead of toward me.
In that world, we won't be older and younger,
man and woman, father and daughter.
We'll just be two souls having coffee,
talking about the stars.
All poems copyrighted by the author, Tracey Besmark 1997©