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The Name of the
Father
I.
Any sign of your life
was a slip of the
tongue.
I did not speak your name,
as if its sounds held our pain,
and I could
breathe
them into my lungs,
so they would not become
the only sounds I'd hear
in rainfall, doors slamming,
footsteps, phones ringing,
pages turning, twigs
breaking.
I did not speak
your name. I did not speak
of its meaning:
Who is
like God?
II.
If I did not speak
your name, where did you
exist,
except
in that photograph
where I'm one month old
and our hair is the color of
chestnuts?
Your face, lit
like an angel's, is watching
mine. I must
have
that light inside me.
I'd love to believe
I was blessed by you.
I wish that
father
to be my saint.
III.
Photographs, though, can be hidden
in closets,
boxes,
drawers, to conceal
the memory of you,
your body
itself. I
hid
your fading,
when the light from your skin
grew dull and your
eyes
like a lost
prophet's, Job
with no return home.
IV.
I
took such a deep
breath of pain, I feared
the world would turn away
if it
knew.
Such a deep
breath, not to release
the pain on anyone.
Still the
sounds
of your name
in my dreams. Michael.
Mi-cha-el.
Who-is-like-
God.