Father

A lively young man in old photographs
admiring the gifted coffee-pot lamp,
pretending to smoke, a pretend celebration;
you inhabit so many family memories.

You stood my six-year-old self
snub up to the wall
when I held my privacy, instinctively,
silent of my school day.

Just as I would now,
you ran my locomotives
as I, not allowed to brash my toys,
sulked.

I remember peeking through the crack
of a half-closed door,
looking down the hall,
when mother came back, crying.

You would have loved
to engineer the Internet.

Father,
you send advice through third hand tales,
you star in fondly corrupted anecdotes.

I can still hear the shock
watered down the years.

Father,
why did you die?