All That Evening
You woke slowly
from an involuntary nap
on the old Budapest sofa,
and looking at the chair beside mine,
asked softly,
Where did Daddy Go?
I had to remind you
that he has been dead for 30 years
but you seemed unconvinced,
and all that evening,
he hung about somewhere near.
I wondered
if he meant to fetch you
like a parent
who comes to pick up his child
before the birthday party is over
and consents to a piece of cake
while he waits;
if, for him, death is exile
and he seized this chance
for time off,
hovering in the ether
like a name you can’t quite remember.
Unused to easing
roving souls,
we switched off all the lights
and took our aging bodies up to bed.
We cannot change our lives.
By the same author
Invitation to the Dance and Pieces of us Keep Breaking Off
In the summer of 1949, Jacques d’Amboise found himself in a clash with a bully