We are each a center
A whole world revolves
around you and me
That was my dad
His orbit now is just love
my brothers and I feel
when we are together
Here are some memories
he pushed us —
pressure was baked in
but that’s not really
what I’ll think of
when I want to miss him
We fell asleep reading
I woke up and thought
his head was a dog
or a big, brown shoe
He cried at the end of JFK’s biography —
a blue paperback, one of a series
I loved the Knute Rockne book
the stories about sports
In Connecticut, I’d crawl
to the bottom
of an old sleeping bag
and he’d drag me
over the grass at top speed
There was a red label
on the cassette of classical marches
he played to parade me
on his shoulders,
the old stereo blasting
from inside the armoire
Mini Pancakes shaped like animals
Ski goggle tans and
pasta with yogurt for sauce
on a trip to Utah
Following protocol,
I jammed my ice ax
into the middle of a couloir
in Alaska. I was eleven
and he was irritated
that we were waiting
for the slower folks
I grazed the top of his hand
with the handle
small drops of blood
He took it really well
Pints of ice cream
on the way to Vermont —
one each
The way he said, HOTATE
when ordering sushi
The word clodhoppers
The phrase shoe-string catch
Statements like,
potatoes are a good food
Playing catch with a bottle of pills
outside a shirt and tie event -
because you have to play catch
I’m sure I was the last kid
holding his dad’s hand
I’ll probably be that dad
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