Eight pm on an ordinary Monday.
At the Y, Tommy Orange reads
unconventionally – hurtling
Tony Loneman towards
his death. Six thousand
miles away, my father
is hurtling towards his.
And as he sits down
on that weathered chair
in the carport to wait
for his neighbors,
I picture him closing
his eyes. Just to rest
for a minute. He’s also
just resting through that ten
minute ride to the hospital,
the liquid trapped
in his lungs not bubbling
to the surface.

I guess it was goodbye, then,
that previous Saturday
in the park, when I did not say
I love you –
gut-punched cherry blossoms
dotting the ground around me.

From my mother, I got
worry. She got it
from her mother.
It is my tether, my yoke, my prayer, my incantation.
My father never lost
a day of sleep over anything
in his life.

From my mother, I got
childbearing hips;
drumstick thighs.
She got it from her mother.
This is the end
of the line: no child
of mine will be getting these from me.
There will be
no child
of mine.

Maybe tawakkul also skips
a generation – like blue eyes or
madness. Such a shame.
Since father died, I have found myself
clutching the ground
tightly, toes clenched,
as if to stop it from slipping away.