Poems for My Father

The last time we saw each other,
bristles scraped through bleach
on porcelain as you tried to teach

me how to clean a toilet. I was nine.
You said it was the most important
thing you could tell me. My school

books and backpack leaned against
the wood-paneled wall of the living room.
I told you I loved you even though

I had seen you only twice before.
You told me to remember
how to clean a toilet.

* * *

The return-to-sender postmarks
on the Christmas cards I sent
you looked like breaking waves
swallowing the envelopes whole.
I suppose my mother kept them,
along with the letters I wrote you,
in the same box she kept the only
photo of you holding me when I was a baby.

* * *

When we were leaving New York,
my mother gave me your mother’s
obituary. It was supposed to bring
me closer to you. I stared through
the sunlight into the road ahead of us
where orange reflectors divided the asphalt.

* * *

I’m running down a stairway. Each flight
leads into another. The walls are made

of white cement cinder blocks—
I run my hand along them as I descend.

I look down and see the stairs
spiral around themselves like spooled

copper wire. At the bottom is a pool,
I stop, I jump. I wake as I hit the water.

My partner curls around me
in the middle of the night

as I watch the flicker of headlights
on the bedroom wall and door.

A part of me wonders if I could slip
away between the passing shadows.