Courtesy of Stephen Rahn/Flickr (public domain).
because no one else will. His eyes
are white and cracked like the moon,
little crescents. And when I set
him down, he runs, not knowing
where he’s going. He hits the wall,
then the chair. On his back his legs
keep moving, going nowhere. I wonder
if that’s what death is like; all you see
is a crescent moon, a crack of light
that you keep running into. I know
my dad is dying. I can feel it coming
like a chill, or the way you know
what will happen when you mix red
and blue—a dark crack of pigment
that only gets larger. I dream
of these colors, the lights reflect
to purple on my dad’s airstream trailer.
In my dream, he’s dead—meth pipe
cracked to a crescent moon. Someone
assumes he doesn’t have a daughter.
Then, a crack in the Earth for him
to go into. When I wake I find the moon
outside my own window and I phone him—
I want to make sure he sees it too.