Endgame

                              —Dear father I know you are happy now

I cannot find you in the ether—just the notice of your dying—

not even nuclear in its resonance—not even one

bad photo clouding over one blue sky // & so I wander

transparent streets w/old world screenshots (one) sad wet eyes—

yours—above a ventilator // no voice in that other time //

analog abyss // (two) the wrecked mechanical heaving

of your lungs so you were bone & pump & a length of hose

above my tentative hand // & then the untethering

(to save you they said)—& then the choking (you were alone)

the dying //—it is cold here now // immense fortunes

are moving through us like oceans that don’t quite

condense // just rain & a little mud in the yard the tulips

dagger through // —O tulips // joyful fearful tulips // the woman

across the street is 93 & still alive—I am obliged—& needs

some groceries—I am obliged—until the task’s fulfilled & this

day in the looming string of days foreclosed

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