metonymy4u

9-25-15


Dad, everything I see these days seems to remind me of you.
I guess it’s just because at this time last year you
were still alive and I was in Spain wasting what days
I had left on rules and seduction.

Or maybe it’s because I’m spending all this time now
watching your grand-daughter grow up. I wish
I could tell you again and again about how she’s
learning to say my name—you know the one
you picked out for me forty eight years ago.

And though

I can think of you when I want to I still scroll through
saved messages on my phone hoping to hear
your voice out loud once more. I don’t know why
anyone would ever do that. Suppose I could

see you like you were before, I’m thinking you’d
probably seem too distracted—as if you can’t
quite grasp what to say to me and I have
to make my plane or waste a lot of money—

whose sadness were you telling me about? Whose death?
Yours or mine.