I Have So Little to Offer this World
       

is something I often say to myself
              in the worst of times, those days
I can barely make it out of bed,
              but the kids still need their lunches
packed for schools, & their mother
              is in the hospital on dilaudid
to ease the pain from her pancreas or her feet.
              Those days it is the responsibilities
that get me out of bed,
              but I go, as they say, through the motions,
& not even beautiful motions,
              not some sort of ballet, or Shaolin,
or even Yoga,
              & certainly not like the old people
I saw doing Tai Chai
              standing like cranes
or playing harps or lutes in the town square
              in that city I lived in, so long ago
it may have been another lifetime,
              maybe another life,
the one I suspect centuries ago
              I lived & followed Tu Fu,
reading back to him his poems
              before he lit the paper
& sent them burning
              in tiny paper boats or on Lotus leaves
down the river,
              the river which courses back
& forth in this life
              so much it is as if it curls
back upon itself,
              & there we are reliving the death
of our father, or our daughter's
              first day of school, or a time
I lost my job & those days
              looking for work when there was none.
My daughters are now up
              & walking through the house
completely oblivious to how I feel,
              which is how it should be:
Stop worrying & be a child
              I constantly say to my autistic daughter
who perseverates
              over everything, who calls herself dumb.
What is dumb, I tell her is this world.
              It doesn't speak & when it does
what it says is often cruel.
              But you & I can say beautiful things—
when she grins, opens her mouth & shouts
              shiiiiiiiiiit, the word she knows we must
climb out of already, rising
              over the rust-
-ing yellow school bus
              that pulls up & opens its door
like a great hinged jaw
              & takes my daughters to the place
of rules & numbers;
              but somewhere today (I know
from the paper calendar
              their mother magnetted
to the fridge, they have music) my daughters
              will be singing,
in a room full of children,
              notes will be taught
& there will be arpeggios
              & off-key sharps, & my wife
is on the cellphone to make sure
              I got them off ok to school,
& her voice is a red bird warbling
              a meandering tune
that means she is feeling better
              & a little high & the doctors say
she will be home soon (to be
              home) is another kind of music:
& my old grumpy neighbor
              walking outside in his jockey shorts
& blue robe & black socks
              to pick up the paper & wave
a little wave is another psalm.
              I glance up at a red-tailed hawk
gliding high
              before it drops in one seamless
glissando— a coda
              for this inane tremulous joy.

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Copyright © 2020 Sean Thomas Dougherty All rights reserved
from Southern Indiana Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission