My father clipped coupons at the kitchen table,
his numismatic faith burnished like currency
in the safe. He was a caretaker, able
to give himself in visible ways: my birth-
day present, the Buick
Skylark, the silk
he wrapped us in against neuralgia, loyalties
moral as 11th-hour tales
in True, the only magazine he took.
Meanwhile, I was full of prim
insurrections, a maximalist
on a shoestring. How could I
admit I withdrew from him
as from a too-gentle thing I wanted to live
forever? I couldn’t stand the forthcoming
sadness. Love, if true, is tacit.
It accumulates, nugget and dust, arcade of sweet
exchange. I argued the self-
evidence of all enheightenments.
Yet we were camouflaged. I told lies
in order to tell the truth,
something I still do. It was hard
to imagine a world in tune
without his attention
to its bewildering filters, emergency
brakes, without his measured tread: Diligent world,
silly world! where keys turn and idiot lights
signal numinous privations.
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