Today's poem is by Lana Hechtman Ayers

Flood
        ~for my father

With water gushing
from beneath the sink,
flooding over yellow linoleum
in my condo kitchen,
the shut-off valve not there,
or anywhere I can find
in the bare-bulb cellar, father
it is you I want to call for help,
you I want call back from death.

In the house where you raised me
for eighteen years, you could fix
everything, especially from your
makeshift workshop in the bare-bulb
basement, more shadow than luminance,
with the gas water heater sputtering
& grumbling to life in its own rhythm—
a scary monster to me.

But there was also your soothing stillness—
no humming, or mumbling, or singing.
Just the peaceful rise and fall of your breath,
wiry gray chest hairs peeking up
from the neck of your ribbed, sleeveless
undershirt like unruly kindergartners.

You measured and marked
things you needed to cut
with a chunky, flat pencil
I secretly coveted
but had the reverence
never to touch.

Watching you work—
more holy than I ever felt
in the sanctum of synagogue.
The bend of your back
over the table saw
exactly how robins
leaned into wet lawn
to seek fat worms—
intention with the whole
of their feathered bodies.

You started up the saw,
eased the plywood into the blade
in the same way you pushed me off
on my first two-wheeled bicycle,
with certainty that your love
would always keep me safe.

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Copyright © 2023 Lana Hechtman Ayers All rights reserved
from When All Else Fails
Publisher
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission