when my father died
fifty years ago today
we found half-full
pint bottles of whiskey
in chest of drawers
with socks, handkerchiefs,
teeshirts and shorts --
in his 20s when The
Depression began,
Defense non-combat
boatyard through WWII
furniture salesman at
A.H.Stiehl’s in NYC
a good man with empty
bottles who also visited poor
families in parish with
St Vincent de Paul brothers
when they needed help
never speaking of it at homedeciding it was so between Greek
and Latin exercises -- deciding?
life for him was grid of concrete
and asphalt, his nostalgia for green
a feared intruder (why that phrase?)
had entered the house, I sat
on front porch under tree shade
he lay dead in small room, heart
just gave out, asking his wife
to take off his shoes, still, gone
collapsing in kitchen, crawled
I drove down West Side Highway
through Battery Tunnel under
Twin Towers to sit on bed with him
still, gone, before body released
taken to funeral home blocks away
house now empty, room empty,
pint bottles empty, prayer as well
