ROUND TRIP

Look at this man exist, eyes,
look long and hard, peepers,
see that brass nameplate?

Now
shift, gaze, go on, shift
see the grey flannel suit on the
other side
of mahogony desktop.
Rest eyes on that.

Apparition.

My ears have heard
that name
before
in shouts and
whispers heard
that name yes, heard that name
heard it then told that it did not exist- gibberish
scrawled across the back of
a jaundiced
postcard, face
deleted,
forced to forget an empty
hole
cut out of the picture
empty, round, an
empty rounder,
closing the gap
that thirty year
presence, that
presence of absense
but a presence of absence
cannot exist.

His hands are folded
on the calendar blotter
the mahogony desktop, beneath brass nameplate,
I know I saw sometime or place
I read it before, and it's a
short story;

He says to me
I met you once, you were
about six
Your mother and I
wound up somehow
at the same lawn party
half in the bag
and half out the door
I stumble across you
with a coloring book

half asleep in some stranger’s bed
Hello Robin, I smiled,
I am your father,
you glanced up, then went back to your coloring.

I know,
you said.

Home.