Some days my dad doesn’t remember
stuff like the day I was born and how it rained
for sixteen days straight before I came.
My daddy used to swear they had to take a boat.
Sailed to the hospital as captain, he used to say.
Came home with a first mate.
And I’d ask about Mama—what was she.
Everything. Your mama was and is
everyone and everything to me.
Tell me about the boat again, Daddy. But now
he says he doesn’t remember.
Some days he sits in his big chair by the window
and stares out at Sweet Pine.
Asks us over and over again What kind of tree is that?
It’s fall again. And the leaves are bright orange
and Maple’s leaves are too
and even Crabby with her red berries and yellow leaves is beautiful.
You look out and it’s like the sky’s on fire, my daddy says.
You look up, he says, and it’s the most beautiful thing.
Some days his repetition sounds like the chorus of a song.
You look out and it’s like the sky’s on fire.
You look up and it’s the most beautiful thing.
I watch my mom watching him from the kitchen,
her eyebrows wrinkling.
Come watch these leaves with me, little man.
Come watch the way they fall, my dad says.
Come watch the way they fall, little man.
Come watch these leaves with me.