Losing You
Tonight I want to find my father again,
loose flesh over brittle bone,
hooded eyes and eyebrows growing
wild, I want to find him underneath
himself and push him off until I
see his gleaming flesh of yesterday
coming home from a long day of
work, tall and sure of his children
waiting to rush toward him,
mouths to knee or thigh bone,
my mother in the kitchen
burning peas and a pot roast, rushing
out to greet him to tell us about
her day, the good, the bad,
I want to see his exhausted face
and shining business shoes walk
across the green carpet toward her,
I want to see his back, his arms
disappearing around her tired
waist stretched from the children
that made it and the one’s that
didn’t, I want to hear him laugh
with Jackie Gleason or
Laugh Inn or Mel Brooks,
that shoulder laugh
that my brother Ken inherited,
when his whole torso lifts up in
sheer joy, and back down again.
Laura Lentz
