Father’s Day

You think I’m far, that we don’t speak much,
that I’m “the prodigal daughter,”
that I didn’t want or take
as much from you as did your sons.

But I’ve never told you
and you’ve never seen
when I’m most me,
there’s the most you.

As I write this, for example, I hear the woods
outside my bedroom, the crickets and cicadas,
and I relish it, picked this place because of it,
enjoying and defending the green, as you taught me,
on Sunday nature walks and fall hikes and endless hours outdoors.

This morning, I plucked a poetry book from my bookcase,
a collection that includes Billy Collins and Mary Oliver
and Shel, who started it all, whose words
I cannot read without hearing your voice as his, as you read to me
and as I read to other children now, the sleepy sounds of night.

And I caught myself, just a moment ago, reflective and writing,
my index and middle fingers pushing my temple up 
into a deep wrinkle, and I can picture you 
in exactly the same pose, listening, thinking, working, 
our warm almond eyes flickering identically.

This evening I’m considering going to the theatre
down the road, alone, to see a classic
cops and robbers movie, like so many others you showed me—
black and whites, silent films, cowboys, we covered it all—
and I’ll sit with my Raisinets and popcorn, of course, as we always do.

And maybe on the way, I’ll stop by the authentic Italian
pizza place, where I know I won’t be able to help seeking out
one of their TVs, just to hear the sound of a bat crack and a booming
announcers voice, that sound of summer, smell of grass
and leather and sweat and you.

This day, this moment, this poem, is purely me,
but it’s all you, it’s all because of you.
That old saying, usually reserved for lovers,
there’s no me without you,
in this case is true.