happy father's day

Jerome K.
1933-1996

By your workbench in the basement, I found
your navy blue hooded sweatshirt with its holes
and white paint stains, and I don’t know how
you fit into it; the sleeves are so short my wrists
are exposed and cold. I remember a version of your face,
from pictures, and now your clothes with no body
wanting to keep going, to push along through
the remembered rooms, as if your ghost could uncoil
the tight aching in my chest, as if you could say
don’t dream of saving me, as if you could be saved any longer.

-- from Never