I could count our visits on one hand.
You in bed, me in a hurry.
Everything for you was in reach,
tools, switches, pens, toothpicks,
a washcloth to cool your face.
Did I ever tell you how much I watched your face?
I saw it full of hot blood
when you knew the long, long wait
was almost over
after a day you’d spent
feeling the good sun on your neck again.
I saw it grey and bewildered
like papier-mache figures on an egg
after a day when your strength failed
and the needles tore away in your
chest’s flesh.
I saw the two lines of your cheeks
jagged like the sides of a ravine
or soft and chilled like an eel’s side,
and the in-between was so changing,
so much like the rolling lights
on a sunlit lake
I didn’t have time to name them.
i saw your boilerkeeper’s nose
flecked red with hot spray,
the tiny bandages on your forehead,
the tape holding your bifocals together.
I saw the hair you kept cropped short
grown silvergrey and full near your red ears
when the battle was over,
beautiful and proud near your crown
like the folds of an angel’s robes.

There were many times I said to myself
you were a Jehovah
but I didn’t like Jehovah at the time.
I claimed the right of a free young man
to choose my gods and my masters.
I couldn’t use a father,
what with my visions and ambitions
you and your demands
were the oldest I knew
and I was waiting for the unknowable.

I’ve seen you pumping gas,
riding an old motorcycle,
driving from Fresno to San Francisco
no less than two feet too
small to touch the Ford’s throttle.
I’ve seen you sitting on your father’s
bar getting a haircut,
I’ve seen your father firing at doves
that fell at his feet,
and I’ve seen you easing yourself down
from the belfry at Aunt Nanny’s
house after she was asleep.
I’ve seen you talking to grown people
in a church
and to young people in a classroom,
to me across your damn brown desk.
I’ve seen you high in the Sequoias
on a wiry roan
when you were a forest ranger.
I believe I was wrong
when I said to myself
my father should be less brave
than I am,
and one day soon
I’ll make a grandson for you.