Chasm
I feel you
Across the chasm
Dirt trampled where you walked
Steady patriarch
And father figure
Every bit the man
I wasn't but
Ever still the model
I could be
Eight children and
World wars
Paris and New York
Card games and cucumbers
Italian crooners
Unflinching in the face of
Lost hub caps
Your yellow convertible machismo
Grocery aisle flirtations
cancer on my
Single-candled birthday
Or a holiday in the hospital
decades later
And Thanks
For Giving
Me and her and all of us
Resolve,
Grandfather,
A way across.
Across the chasm
Dirt trampled where you walked
Steady patriarch
And father figure
Every bit the man
I wasn't but
Ever still the model
I could be
Eight children and
World wars
Paris and New York
Card games and cucumbers
Italian crooners
Unflinching in the face of
Lost hub caps
Your yellow convertible machismo
Grocery aisle flirtations
cancer on my
Single-candled birthday
Or a holiday in the hospital
decades later
And Thanks
For Giving
Me and her and all of us
Resolve,
Grandfather,
A way across.