April 10th

my father took
me, a suspicious son
toward the casket
where his own
father lie

it was 1979
i wore a K-Mart suit jacket
and a clip-on tie
and my father had to
tamp down my cowlick with spit-in-palm

my father celebrates 

his birthday on april 10th

even though he

discovered late in life

that his birth certificate says the 9th

my grandmother ina

having celebrated it a day late 

for reasons known only to her:

dad thinks she was confused

by the late hour of his birth

to an 11-year-old
who just got
his first 10-speed for
his birthday
i feared all evil

the funeral home
hummed with the
low mourn of
clingy
ghosts

he - my father - placed
his hand between my shoulder
blades and urged me forward
toward the casket
at the end of a long bright room

my father kissed me

on the lips all the time

and once in front of peers

after being dropped off at 

school and they called me fag

i have kissed my own sons'

lips to suck

from them the poison

of men inebriated

by their own ignorance

that's where it is
he said to me. I
was eye-level with
my grandfather
in his own suit jacket and tie

he rested there
his thin hair perfected
needing no tamping down
although i sensed my
father wanted to anyway

his pacemaker
my father explained
i said nothing but he heard
the question in my mind
it kept his heart beating

he wept, my father,

at my brother's death bed

when he said 

now i know what

god felt like when he lost his son

my brother who

could be given nothing

to keep his heart going

the victim of a 

riot of brain cells

my father took my hand
in his own
swallowing it whole
and together we patted
his fallen father's cold chest

tap
his hand was hot
tap
his hand was shaking
tap

i refused
to ride my new 10-speed
for weeks after
i remember not
wanting to leave his presence

in my silly child's way
i inferred from our
shared moment at the funeral
home that he needed my small
hand between his and his father's chest

as if my hand
acting as an insulator
protected my father
from something
sinister

and now
to put distance between us
would betray
the trust we'd cultivated
in that bright, gloomy place

a father to a child
is a connection made of
a thousand different
flowing gold strands
woven and made taut by time

we go tomorrow

to celebrate  his birthday

it being april 10th

and we'll have cake

and ice cream 

i love that he waits a day later 

than he should 

a foggy mistake by his mother has meant 

i have been afforded a day longer than what some men

have enjoyed with their own fathers

i have wondered
if my grandfather kissed my father
on the lips
or held my father's hand
passionately

i celebrate
my father's maker
the highest giver
be praised for gifting me
a lovely giver