Years Later, Washing Dishes, A Vision

after a poem by Robert Wrigley

Dawn at the kitchen sink, sunrise still

climbing across the California hills,

the jacaranda’s shaking: an invisible hand

rocks the yellow porch swing, lifts and unfurls

the tarp awning to startle dozens of house sparrows,

their flight sudden and erratic. Beyond

the loosening leaves, my father, as if returning

from fetching the mail, rises through it all,

the leaves and the mist, his hands (smaller now,

it seems) clutched in front of him, as if holding

a letter only he can see. Water overflows

the open bowl of my hands.