The Summer You Learned to Swim by Michael Simms
For Lea
The summer you learned to swim
was the summer I learned to be at peace with myself.
In May you were afraid to put your face in the water
but by August, I was standing in the pool once more
when you dove in, then retreated to the wall saying
You forgot to say Sugar! So I said Come on Sugar, you can do it
and you pushed off and swam to me and held on
laughing, your hair stuck to your cheeks—
you hiccupped with joy and swam off again.
And I dove in too, trying new things.
I tried not giving advice. I tried waking early to pray. I tried
not rising in anger. Watching you I grew stronger—
your courage washed away my fear.
All day I worked hard thinking of you.
In the evening I walked the long hill home.
You were at the top, waving your small arms,
pittering down the slope to me and I lifted you high
so high to the moon. That summer all the world
was soul and water, light glancing off peaks.
You learned the turtle, the cannonball, the froggy, and the flutter
and I learned to stand and wait for you to swim to me.
The Bearing Edge by Ralph James Savarese
For DJ
My son starts every conversation
with the statement “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, Dad. What’s for dinner tonight?”
“I love you, Dad. Is it supposed to rain?”
“I love you, Dad. Can we go for a walk?”
“I love you, Dad, but you really have to chill.”
He’s like the guy who wears a bow tie
to the bar and to the beach.
He’s a dandy of affection, at once
rolling up his pennies and spending them
on ice cream. He’ll wear this phrase
to heaven (he’s already been to hell—
what he calls fostercareless). If
Orpheus had a lyre, then he has a bearing
edge. He will not drum without it:
“I love you, Dad.”
He moves forward by glancing back,
and no one is ever lost.
The sky sells cotton candy;
the trees, shade.
Love—it’s a kind of leash, invisible,
expanding, and I’m his big, happy dog.
Asked for a Happy Memory of Her Father, She Recalls Wrigley Field
by Beth Ann Fennelly
His drinking was different in sunshine,
as if it couldn’t be bad. Sudden, manic,
he swung into a laugh, bought me
two ice creams, said One for each hand.
Half the hot inning I licked Good Humor
running down wrists. My bird-mother
earlier, packing my pockets with sun block,
had hopped her warning: Be careful.
So, pinned between his knees, I held
his Old Style in both hands
while he streaked the sun block on my cheeks
and slurred My little Indian princess.
Home run: the hairy necks of the men in front
jumped up, thighs torn from gummy green bleachers
to join the violent scramble. Father
held me close and said Be careful,
be careful. But why should I be full of care
with his thick arm circling my shoulders,
with a high smiling sun, like a home run,
in the upper right-hand corner of the sky?
Forgiveness by Christopher Soto
for Dad
I’m writing you
10 years later
& 2,000 miles
Away from
Our silence
My mouth a cave
That had collapsed
I’m writing
While you
You wear the
Hospital gown &
count failures
Such as the body’s
Inability to rise
I see your fingers
Fumbling in the
Pillbox as if
Earthquakes are in
Your hands
I think it’s time
For us to abandon
Our cruelties
For us to speak
So s o f t
We’re barely
Human.
If I Carry My Father by Marjorie Saiser
I hope it is a little more
than color of hair
or the dimple or cheekbones
if he's ever here in the space I inhabit
the room I walk in
the boundaries and peripheries
I hope it's some kindness he believed in
living on in cell or bone
maybe some word or action
will float close to the surface
within my reach
some good will rise when I need it
a hard dense insoluble shard
will show up
and carry on.
