WEBVTT

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"Whereas"

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I heard a noise I
thought was a sneeze.

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At the breakfast table,
pushing eggs around my plate,

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I wondered if he liked
my cooking, thought

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about what to talk about.

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He pinched his fingers to
the bridge of his nose,

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squeezed his eyes.

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He winked.

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I often say he was a terrible
drinker when I was a child.

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I'm not afraid to say it
because he's different now,

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sober, attentive,
showered, eating.

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But in my childhood, when
things were different,

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I rolled onto my side,
my hands together as if

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to pray, locked
between my knees.

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When things were
different, I lay there

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for long hours, my
face to the wall.

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Blink.

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My eyes left me.

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My soldiers, my two
scouts to the unseen.

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And because language
is the immaterial,

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I never could speak
about the missing.

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So perhaps I cried
for the invisible,

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what I could not see, doubly.

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What is it to wish for
the absence of nothing?

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There at the breakfast
table, as an adult,

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wondering what to talk about,
if he liked my cooking,

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pushing the invisible
to the plate's edge,

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I looked up to see
he hadn't sneezed.

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He was crying.

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I never heard him cry, didn't
recognize the symptoms.

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I turned to him when
I heard him say,

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"I'm sorry I wasn't there,
sorry for many things."

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Like that curative
voicing and opened bundle

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or medicine or birthday wishing,
my hand to his shoulder.

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"It's OK," I said.

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"It's over now."

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I meant it because of our
faces, blankly, because

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of a lifelong stare-down,
because of centuries in sorry.

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