After next times

have run out—

beg me father,

for enough to make it through,

for a tear drop,

for all the whiskey, the world.

A soft red-carpet bottom, a deep grassed yard.

No hard-won hugs. No past. No pass.

No more daughters or sons or their sons

no truth or consequences.

Hands father, which instead fall

folded into prayer. And me,

I would bend, knee scratched,

brimming full of run,

stopped and caught.

Who but me father, would see all

the swagger in your swan song,

the slow motion fall of you.

Promise me again

that the sky isn’t blue

that you can still see the stars in day.

Let me oil the deep creases in your hands,

the used ones.

Let me raise you to my dry places,

above the high water mark,

where we’d finally be absent together.