For years I dreamt of ashes
assembling on the shore
and in the morning
like every morning
his body gone—irrevocable,
like a name, desperate
on a child’s tongue. Even the word father
continues
to fall away when I speak.
Our desire so far outside ourselves
we might just become it.
This is him, I say, holding the photograph,
window-light catching dust
as it hangs on air.
I once thought the body could disappear
and I was right. And yet—
I can’t look at this empty page
without seeing his hands
opening my hands
into light.
I can’t think of anything else
when I try to.
There is no other way to say this
the poem tells me.
If I tell the story in reverse
it still ends with nothing.