☀ Today's Poem: "Portrait of My Father's Dissolution" Arthur Kayzakian

1
in the year of my refuge, i soothe my father's tumors; he closes his eyes and flies like a
man with wings torn from his back. someone must have ripped heaven from the sky and
pinned it to the back of his eyelids. someone must have told him living is as hopeless as
making love in front of mirrors.

2
my father died when he was twelve. the doctors zipped the body bag over his face, but my
father refused his ghost the way he refused hospital flowers. when he was resurrected, his
sperm was shaded with an afterlife; now, when he coughs, the scar on his right lung takes
the shape of a dead boy bombing out of his chest.

3
my father once said he had a talent for getting sick. in the cavity of his lung the dark scar
opens a narrow door to heaven. my father's luck can make a tree ashamed of itself:
hanging low, branches to the ground, grateful for its thousand years while my father
slides off his body hoping to land on a leaf. who knows. maybe in heaven the dead are not
converted to trees.

4
my father is a mountain with houses built on his back. from a distance, the lit windows
glow like the eyes of a moth flickering in the night. nobody wants to die. forced to come
out of hiding, his arms up in the air, awaiting demolition.

5
in the year of my refuge, i rub my father's back and foresee his silhouette slipping
through a door: maybe death catapults us to a hall of mirrors pretending to serve the
body when in a larger realm, we are trapped in a spectrum between worlds forever
glossing over the way we look.

6
once my father dropped a sugar cube in a cup of hot tea. when it dissolved and
evaporated to the surface—this, he said, is how important we are.