And now I'm going to read the first poem
that I wrote after he died, that I realized showed me
that I really needed to let this book become what it wanted
to be.
And then, I couldn't keep him out of it.
Please advise, stop.
I was dragging a ladder slowly over stones, stop.
It was only from out of my thoughts
that I could climb, stop.
Not from this room, please.
My father's dying offered an indelicate washing
of my perception, stop.
The way the centers of some syllables scrub
away all other sound, stop.
His corpse merely preparing to speak its new name at the speed
of night falling, please.
Each loss grows from a previously unremarkable
vestigial organ, stop.
Will I act now as if with a new limb, stop.
A phantom limb of the familial, please advise.