The wake.
His mouth’s been stuffed.
It looks all wrong.
Like a B actor cast
to play my father.
I dare myself to touch his face.
It feels like wood,
or colder,
like glass.
Chloe gets me some food,
I pick at it.
I think about Dylan.
About Existentialism.
All those philosophers saying there’s
nothing out there to believe in.
And how making something meaningful
was so important to my dad.
But now he’s gone.
Now, he’s the nothing.
Dylan shows up, as if he knows
I’m thinking about him.
He takes my hand.
I let myself lean into him.
To feel something warm.
The crowd swells
and he knows
I need to leave it.
He pulls me to
the coats and we huddle
under them.
We don’t kiss.
We don’t even talk.
We just play hangman.
He names the category:
Space.