I’ve made decisions that I’ll never tell my father.
I wonder what would change if he was my age?
What would his jaw never give? Sex impulse,
alcoholic demand, fears stitched to breathing.
Would he be the one I’d take a black eye from?

Keith called me once from jail, wanted to be
picked up. I knew. No words. I wasn’t father.
I drove over, signed the paper, walked back
to the truck first, let him open his own door,
listened to the air whisper over the windows
on the drive back, told him that I’d see him later
without thinking, its torrent of luxuries.