OVERTURE (anticipation)
When my father dies, it will happen
as it always happens; a midnight drive
across the desert, tumbleweeds
over headlights, someone’s small house
adrift in the distance. His own orphaned
image receding into the horizon.
It will be as easy as reclining my head
against velvet cushions, though sharp
as the panic of falling
in a dream. And memory, that renegade
apostle, that curbside huckster selling
shadows and regret, will take his usual position
before the footlights, his back to me
as always, the black tails of his coat
draping coolly down his back, parting
with each fluid gesture.
With his baton held high,
he will cue the orchestra
and begin to slowly, slowly
tap out a two-four tempo.
Intermezzo
When it happens, it will happen
as it always does—inevitably, like a body
in retrograde, poker face held firm, a disappearance
in the night, a discordant departure—
little elsewheres everywhere . . .
Together we will be
a confusion of white space—blank notes, thin
and faltering in our dissonance—a final dissention;
always going . . . almost gone.
Overture (resignation)
When my father dies, it will happen
as it always does; high wind through pipes,
low fog rolling off the lake,
a dream of drowning.
Any sudden scenario
that startles then subsides.
I will be back in the ache
of it, negotiating with ghosts—
Like the end of a performance
it will have nothing
and everything to do with me.
It will culminate in reverberations—
then ambient noise, the overture finally over.
There will be polite rumblings
from the audience, a scuff of heels
on concrete, the whoosh and slam
of a taxi arriving and departing.
I will straighten my scarf, like a flag
of resignation and walk home in frozen air.