my father and i

my father and i are talking on the phone
we've been mostly silent for the last two years

we both have our fears and false memories
we speak different languages about different lives

it is a long reach through 500 miles of wire
but we are making progress and the calls continue

i want some sense of belonging, history
i assume he wants to be forgiven, to be remembered

i think how casually it might have happened
he was at a party and drinking

my mother was there
and she was young and willing

and then i think of the times in my life when all depended
on that moment where she spreads her legs

most of us have been there
longed for that moment, savored it

morning and consequences
forty years and 500 miles away

Michael Dennis
Ottawa ON