[I TEXT MY FATHER IN THE AFTERLIFE & HE DOES NOT RESPOND] [W/BECKETT ECHO]
        —Dear father I know you are happy now

I cannot find you in the ether— just the notice of your dying—
not even nuclear in its resonance— not even one
bad photo clouding over one blue sky // & so I wander
transparent streets w/old world screenshots (one) sad wet eyes—
yours— above a ventilator // no voice in that other time //
analog abyss // (two) the wrecked mechanical heaving
of your lungs so you were bone & pump & a length of hose
above my tentative hand // & then the untethering
(to save you they said) — & then the choking (you were alone)
the dying //— it is cold here now // immense fortunes
are moving through us like oceans that don't quite
condense // just rain & a little mud in the yard the tulips
dagger through // — O tulips // joyful fearful tulips // the woman
across the street is 93 & still alive— I am obliged— & needs
some groceries— I am obliged— until the task's fulfilled & this

day in the looming string of days foreclosed

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Copyright © 2022 Dennis Hinrichsen All rights reserved
from schema geometrica
Green Linden Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission