ESCHATON

The rain pounding on tin but not passing through it cannot conjure blue
                         rust in the way feeling can
—oxidizing an iris to slate gray, to storm cloud, to fog gathering
                         on the April morning
when my father was born & cried out, mattering. In Burnet County
                         there were wildflowers then.
I like to think: “little crucifixions.”  He kissed my cheek until three—
                         four maybe—until tenderness
missed its mark. Arrows he loosed forty-five yards away striking bullseye
                         targets were more measurable
than the space between us. The largest buck he ever saw he never shot
                         he was fond of saying.
I slowly came to understand the distances we were both creating every time
                         he told me about Troy,
Greece, Helen, & the ships sent for her. I want to hear his voice again & know
                         my Athens is interstellar
as a comet’s orbit, though my own failing vision will not permit me to trace
                         constellations or apologies yet.
What am I but weakness when the past tense claims me? Salt of the earth
                         to the earth returning
or a spit-flecked prophet?  Supernova, maybe? At the end of the world
                         I’ll hear his voice
& our conversations will return him to me & those wildflowers.
                         The sun will swell
to ten times its size, rise, & my father will draw back his bowstring again
                         without any effort.

-first appeared in Linebreak