Salmon by Gabrielle Bates
My father and I sit at a sushi bar in my new city
sampling three different kinds of salmon nigiri.
He tells me about a great funeral speech
he recently heard a son give for his father.
The speech was structured around regrets
everyone assumed the father didn’t have,
interspersed with hilarious stories involving boys
crashing the family van and fishing mishaps.
The ivory salmon is pale and impossibly soft.
The sliver of steelhead, orange enough
to pretend it’s salmon. How else to say it.
I am my father’s only child, and he is my mother.
We dip our chopsticks into a horseradish paste
dyed green and called wasabi. I know his regrets.
I could list them. But instead at his funeral
I will talk if I can talk about nights like this,
how good it felt just to be next to him,
to be the closest thing he had.
Un Bel Di by Gerald Locklin
Because my daughter's eighth-grade teachers
Are having what is called an "in-service day,"
Which means, in fact, an out-of-service day,
She is spending this Friday home with me,
So I get up in time to take us,
On this summery day in March,
For a light lunch at a legendary café
Near the Yacht Marina.
Then we feed some ducks before catching
The cheap early-bird showing of
My Cousin Vinny, at which we share a
Dessert of a box of Milk Duds large
Enough to last us the entire show.
Afterwards we drive to a shoe-store to
Get her the Birkenstocks she's been coveting,
But they're out of her size in green; we leave
An order and stop for dinner at Norm Calvin's
Texas-style hole-in-the-wall barbeque rib factory.
When we get home I am smart enough
To downplay to my wife what a good day
We have had on our own. Later, saying
Goodnight to my little girl,
Already much taller than her mother,
I say, "days like today are the favorite
Days of my life," and she knows
It is true.
The Way to Teach a Son How to Tie a Necktie by Brian Doyle
Is to stand behind him in front of a mirror and very slowly
Go through the ancient silly ritual: prop up the shirt collar,
Drape the tie around the holy squirming lean beloved neck
You have seen every day for years and years since the first
Moment you saw it peer out of its moist miraculous cavern.
Match the ends of the tie so that you don’t have it drooping
Toward your knees, or the thinner end longer than the thick.
Why in heaven’s name that matters is not a question we can
Answer in any sensible way; it just is. That’s how my father
Taught me and his father him and so on back to Cúchulainn,
From whom we are descended for untold tens of generations.
No, the chances are slim that Cúchulainn wore a necktie. Do
Not ask me why he did not have to and we do. Then the first
Wrap, and then under, and then the other one through. Foxes
Chasing rabbits, see? No, rabbits do not wear neckties, that I
Know about, although maybe they do on dignified occasions
Like this one. Then you very gently pull the knot tight—very
Gently, see, while fiddling generally to let the know look cool.
Why do we voluntarily strangle ourselves with useless cloth?
An excellent question. Neckties are like bright feathers, good
Only for preening. Some men use them to tell you where they
Went to college, or what clubs or tribes they belong to. Yes,
Neckties are like bumper stickers on cars sometimes. Exactly
So. Now we examine ourselves in the mirror: two beautifully
Dressed men, are we not? You remember this moment. There
Will be a moment like this for you someday, when you stand
Behind your son at the mirror and help him tie his tie and you
Will feel the same rush of love and memory and sadness, that
Time eats holy moments like this. My dad stood behind me at
The mirror. It was the day of his brother’s wedding. Long ago
But yesterday and I remember he was tall and smiling and our
Ties matched. Do ties make sense? Only for that; only for this.
My Father’s Hands by Zeina Azzam
They were not large, but thick
fleshy workers in the garden
nursing eggplants and fennel,
okra and chard,
digging and tilling and weeding,
making the soil an obliging host.
Maybe that’s what made
his fingers rough in spots,
or maybe it was the constant leafing
through books: a loving lick
and a flip-flap of the page
in search of nuggets
that would be turned over and over
in his mind.
After he died
I found bookmarks between pages
carefully pointing
like tags next to seedlings in the earth:
These are the plants I hoped for.
These are the ideas that made me grow.
Talking to Dad by Connie Wanek
It’s easier than picking up the phone,
whenever, wherever.
I need only the faintest signal
like a single thread of what used to be
his tennis shirt. Like an empty
chair at our table
into which a grandchild climbs.
After a bee leaves a clover blossom
the buzzing grows faint.
But there are many waves
in the infinite air,
and one of these carries an answer
to the simplest question.
He’s fine, everything’s fine.
Imaginary Dad by Tina Cane
Was so imaginary he ceased to exist
he wasn’t sleeping in a treehouse or stalking the woods
in fatigues cheeks smeared green with camouflage grease
a knife between his teeth like I had envisioned him
he was just a married guy
living
in a small town near a dozen of my made-up cousins
kin so distant they didn’t even know to miss me
all their lives
I’d picture them
fumbling in their pockets through loose change
patting their pants in search of something
left behind all the time never knowing
what it was
or what it was like
to eat Twizzlers while watching Apocalypse Now
in a darkened theater on Bleecker St.
to think
each time a soldier appeared on screen Now, there’s a dad
if I ever saw one because of course they’d seen one
he was nothing like that and he belonged to me
Father by Ted Kooser
Today you would be ninety-seven
if you had lived, and we would all be
miserable, you and your children,
driving from clinic to clinic,
an ancient and fearful hypochondriac
and his fretful son and daughter,
asking directions, trying to read
the complicated, fading map of cures
But with your dignity intact
you have been gone for twenty years,
and I am glad for all of us, although
I miss you every day- the heartbeat
under your necktie, the hand cupped
on the back of my neck, Old Spice
in the air, your voice delighted with stories.
On this day each year you loved to relate
that the moment of your birth
your mother glanced out the window
and saw lilacs in bloom. Well, today
lilacs are blooming in side yards
all over Iowa, still welcoming you.
