Dead Dad

Each summer I stand beside you        and wait, toes curved over
the edge of the covered bridge. It is just us   except
when a car passes and rattles the wood siding. Below, the current
tugs at our       reflections. Throws my body much farther out.
I try to decide where I would rather be alone.

This is what we           do. In that light
after all other light has gone, so barely visible
it is more of an ornament or an image of what light once was.

The pale mounds of your feet will first feel        as if they are landing
on solid ground. The water which runs for miles without fearing
itself will stop and still up for a moment. Have you asked    me to watch
your long drop knowing I will            not fear my own?

Or is it a kind of tenderness. A father,           his child. The one
who has jumped          and the one who must             follow.
I imagine what it would be like to want         to be out of my body
so badly I’d return year after year to this place as if a      body        
is something you can fall out of.

I want more       than one way out           of a story.
I want someone to call it
what it is. There are always gardens in poems. Some things
are better given wings.