Father

He lays there in the wooden bed

at the heart of the room

frozen in the hands of time.

Candle spotlights flicker overhead.

His encasement is its own tiny island

in a sea of somber hues, and beyond the sea

there is nothing.

I fix my gaze upon his fading visage

as I rise and inch closer to face him,

this human-shaped fragment of

flesh and blood, locked in the hands of time.

He does not greet me, forcing me

to break the hovering silence.

His skin is cold, kissed by the chill

hovering in the air like curtains, quietly.

He is the statue of a man I once knew,

the echoes of rage

sewn into his arrested muscles

the remnant of pride.

My eyes whisper the secrets of my heart

and I paint the brief portrait of his essence:

the thin grays of his hair

the depth of his sleepless eyes

the neutral peace of his lips

the fading tan of his skin

the rough texture of his hands

the haunting octave of his voice

His voice, once a whirlwind of beauty and terror,

now a distant choir of lightning

in the clouds of my memory.

Yet as the thundering dies, I engrave it

with ink-stained fingers, carefully.

He is the mural of a reflection trapped in a suit.

The heaviness in the air teases its dominance.

I look away, leaving goodbye at my lips

and kiss death on the cheek.