I
In the black of the morning
brake lights and street lights strung together
like a garland
blurred by the arcs of rainwater
dragged back and forth across the windshield.
Gridlines red and green and white stretch to pre-dawn infinity
the horizon tucked asleep until it absolutely must rise
awakened at the urging of the Sun,
gray-haired and tired these days,
overworked and a little frumpy,
Everywoman at the end of a long year,
beseeching her brood to awaken
stumble out of bed
pour coffee into cups
milk into cereal bowls
cajole and convince us to enter a day
before we’re ready
before we’re warm
before She’s even had time to rise and bustle about
She sends us out
into the black of the morning
chasing us out with the threat of Her disapproval
and the promise
that hills and clouds and trees and rooftops
will emerge.
II
In the black of the mourning
I pin a torn black ribbon atop
the black sweater
add a black skirt and black tights –
black on black.
I awaken before most
into solitude
into loneliness
into silence
still fatherless at the end of a very long year.
Certain gridlines have been extinguished
I call home and do not hear his voice
I open my email to none of his forwarded chain letters.
No matter who says my name, I never hear it the way only he said it,
part dopey, part sing-song,
part undiluted love even years after mine was watered down,
blurred by arcs of daughter-rage and time,
dragged back and forth across the shield I created.
III
In the black of the night
wind and rain batter the trees
pelt the window
I awaken as heat surges through me
flashing hot where once
I was heated by desire.
It is time.
Time to emerge from the dark
to pull the black shroud off the mirror
look again into my face
adorn myself in warm colors
garlanded in reds and greens and whites –
black now only the color of night.
The world without my father no longer seems new.
Daily the Sun grows stronger,
refreshed and renewed
even though –
even though –
that which used to be is gone.
And I who remain
pour coffee into cups
milk into cereal bowls
send my sleepy son out into the world
with only the promise
to plunge into our days with no regard for life
or death.
As if everything that is today
continues.