edge, at a forward slant precisely suited
to the matronly school mistress who had disciplined
his boyishness, who watched from over his shoulder –
like a predator – his orphaned hand.
The perfect loops and paralleled spikes
of my grandfather’s textbook cursive held
for eighty years – growing large as if bold-
ness were a remedy for failing eyes, a trembling pen,
a dangerously erratic heart.
He varied not a whit – even in the grip
of his last illness – as if, still, to please her
whose stern attentions were as close as he
might ever imagine to a mother’s.
Another Occasion
Accept this from me
as you might accept
on another occasion
a small, dried fish
from the hand of an old man.
You are in his kitchen
sitting at his bare table.
It is clean after
the fashion of old men.
Sunlight rides to the floor
on motes of dust.
The fish, on a small plate.
You must be hungry,
he urges, please eat.
Accept this from me:
Twenty years after his death
my father appeared
in a dream. He stood
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