You were younger than I am now.
I keep forgetting that.
The mind arranges a father
into permanent authority.
But here you are,
thirty-something, in a wide collar,
trousers the color of pistachio ice cream,
plaid belt snug against a narrow waist,
looking less like a patriarch
than a man for whom
the world was still unfolding.
You spanked me with those belts.
I remember their width,
how the leather folded in your hand,
the silence before the sting.
There's Chad on your shoulders,
all limbs and teeth.
There's Julie in your arms,
her cheek against your shoulder.
Here's all seven of us, you and mother,
arranged as pioneers,
my brother and I with cap pistols,
the girls in bonnets and prairie dresses,
you with a long-barrel rifle, grinning
like you already won the war.
You delighted in your children,
as if we were the only evidence you needed
that God exists.
The end times came later.
Doomsday televangelists.
Church and church abandoned
over arguments with the pastor.
A God who punished instead of played.
Kansas City, 1986.
You didn't have tickets.
We sat on the hood
of that green station wagon
outside Royals Stadium
and listened
to the World Series broadcast.
Every roar from inside
rolled across the parking lot
like distant thunder.
We followed every inning
as if we were sitting behind home plate.
I don't recognize the slender man
swinging a golf club in the front yard,
but he looks like me,
squinting into the sun,
laughing at something off-frame.
I know that laugh.
I've heard it in my throat.
I've heard it watching my daughters
perform Three Stooges skits
at the kitchen table.
For twenty years I was angry at you
for becoming someone
I feared I'd become.
Dad, I don't know
when wonder left you.
I miss the man
who still expected
to be surprised.
I wish my daughters
had met him.
