One Year After My Dying Father and I Stop Speaking to Each Other Again

Someone on the internet is mourning

her dad-

that old goat

-with a goldmine

of anecdotes. Scraps of fondness I scrape off

her tweet-his beef wellington, her frogs. I want

my frown-scored mouth loaded with her clean vocabulary

of love. The way she holds her father's hand, no pinch

of humiliation. Like the time I saw a teenager

sitting on her father's lap. How I couldn't

take my eyes off the alarming purity of it.

How my mouth dried at the sight like I had been drinking

the wrong water all this time. When I pull

the ocherous leaves from my thirsty pothos, it is

too easy. No satisfactory rip. Too ready

to let go. I covet the reels of the lucky ones going on

about their dead. Everyone I have lost

I have lost before the end.