He doesn’t know he got too close,
wielding a nightly scotch in hand.
It was the day that his wife died
and I was the only female part of her
left. It was not his fault he got too

close to me - he was sleep-deprived,
booze-bamboozled;
all he saw in his grief
were her hands as mine,
that hazel speck in my eyes.

He did nothing wrong but lose his candor
for a bit, put his nose to my nose and say,
“You’re my daughter now,”
and even though I shook in my shoes,
turned into a scared single-digit age,
I nodded, seeing the crazed look in his eyes,
the corneas shaking, tears welling up, breath
stinking and settling over my face like a scrim.

“I’ll take care of you,” he said, “now hug me.”
I tried to, while I held onto my best friend’s hand for
grounding until he shouted,
“With both arms!”
And so I wrapped both arms around
like he was a prickly tree, a tree Mom said I could trust.

And he squeezed and squeezed
and squeezed, wishing she’d
burst from me like a genie
out of a bottle.

12/29/2006

Posted on 12/29/2006
Copyright © 2024 Lisa Marie Brodsky