His feet
Short
Wide
Strong
Never had I really looked at them
Closely
I only remembered his boots
Red Wings I think.
I remember multiple eyelets
And hooks.
I watched him take them off.
He unwound the laces from the Above Achilles
He unhooked and uneyed.
I was just a child but I
Was fascinated.
Those shoes were shed at home
Upon the seventies carpet
In the light of atrocious lamps.
Where did the lamps come from?
Some Rent A Center style store
In a strip mall I presume.
I obsess over the lamps now
But not then
Then it was just the boots.
Metaphorical encapsulations then.
I wondered what he did in the day
Wearing those boots that I could not see
In my desk at school.
I wondered this staring at the scar where the chainsaw
Ate his finger off.
What other life did he lead in the day.
What else did he do
Besides drink beer
Pass out
Piss on the couch
And make me fear him.
Except it wasn’t always that way.
It was mostly that way,
But there was that gift when I was ten.
There was the awkward hug.
There was the tongue tied up that couldn’t speak
When his eyes said
I love you
I love you
I love you so very much
That I cannot say it
I cannot say it
I never learned how
And for that I am sorry.
Mother divorced him.
It was the first summer that we had MTV.
Gun n Roses were getting their big shot
And Def Leppard was pouring sugar on everyone.
I didn’t miss you.
I didn’t know then why she divorced you.
I didn’t know about the disease.
I didn’t know about the refusal to stop.
So the cans kept going to the dumpster
Your liver kept deteriorating.
I wasn’t there to see it.
I was in Texas hating you
And playing father to brothers and sisters
With no knowledge of what a father did.
I locked them in the closet.
I stuck knives in the floor by their feet.
They feared me
Respected me
Loved me
Played me.
I wanted to cry
But I never learned how.
So I screamed.
I hit things
And threw the throwing knives you gave me
At the great oak in the yard
That uncles and cousins used to hoist engines.
Your feet.
Your short
Stout feet
With no boots
A hospital gown
A catheter in your penis
A tube in your rectum
And every night I come here diligently and happy
For every moment you can speak.
I love you.
The course of life is curved.
How could I guess that you would call again.
And again
And again
Over and over
Until I learned you loved me always.
How could I know that the water beneath bridges would carry us?
You in an ambulance
And me in a plane
To a hospital where I wore tall boots
With many eyelets
Where I would watch your feet
And wait for you to speak.
How could I know that we would find love?
Just three years before the machine went blank.
I miss you.
How could I know that I would miss you?
Living in California
With the red Texas clay covering your coffin.
How could I know?
I did not know
How much it would hurt
For you to be gone.
Your body is dead
But I am still in mine
Sitting at this desk
Wondering how to make
Some purpose
Of my Time.
