Father is Talking
about arms needing to reach
out to brush grass from her back,
telling her everything she will ever
need is still here, will always be
green & budding like spring
*
about a voice, a throat pinked
and smooth and still working,
speaking of Betty, the dancer,
clicking her heels at Bar Harbor
to Rosemary Clooney’s “Beautiful
Brown Eyes” or Johnnie Ray’s “Cry”
I am 1951, his voice says, I am
and he still listens from another
room like a womb at the edge of water
that evening his life was born
*
about feet moving, tiptoeing across a glass
floor, bubbles being thrown above their heads,
and her believing the evening was nothing more
than a little box filled with tinsel & triangles
*
about eyes picturing a ripe summer, telling
her she is beautiful without speaking, thinking
of a rose, instead offering a white daisy
“love,” he says, “is all about opportunity”
*
about words that are so far apart they are
more like fireflies, blinking short messages
like after the music stops, let’s go lean
against my car while kissing or better yet,
let’s look at stars until we both go blind
*
about tongues and red licorice, and how they
go together and how they sweet and curl
and how she still liked both, even after
forty-seven years of marriage
*
about missing all those things
___
~ Tim J Brennan lives in Austin, MN. He is a frequent contributer.
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