The Rhizome as a Field of Broken Bones by Margaret Randall

Author:Margaret Randall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-18T16:00:00+00:00

Daddy, Do You Remember Me?

Sixteen years and I can’t conjure

your comforting hand

curled around mine,

your smell of Old Spice

set off by the temperature

you raised playing tennis

with neighbors half your age.

I can’t evoke the name of the book

where you taught me to read

though its black letters on red pasteboard cover

still wander behind my eyes,

and I remember your serial tale

of Pufti and Mike, those picnics

where they chewed the drumsticks clean.

We rode the commuter train together

into the city when I was six.

You let me blend tobaccos in your tiny shop

and we broke Saltines in bowls

of Campbell’s Alphabet Soup for lunch.

You taught me to swim and drive

and tell the truth.

Three years before you died we stood together

my angry fingers clasped in yours

—thick and protective—

one cold January night

on Albuquerque’s Civic Plaza

protesting a war foreshadowing

others you wouldn’t live to see.

When the confusion of age

shattered your knowledge base

your gentle nature

made the transition easy.

I was the parent now, you the child

whose muted wisdom

had finally come to rest.

Your strong body receded

into the nursing home bed,

eyes lost in diminishing sockets

until all I could do was say

I love you

and all you could give me in return

was Ditto.

Now the ashes remaining

from those we scattered

where you walked

your beloved German Shepherd

in mountains we made our home

sit in a cadmium red ceramic jar

here in this studio where I write.

Daddy, do you remember me?

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