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Halfway  (for my father)

Suddenly, you are no longer here.  Nothing else
has changed.  The machines still hiss
and thrum like wings of impossible insects.
Air is forced into your chest so it rises,
falls—a good, dependable ocean.  But your
heart, that intricate, bloody fist, refuses
to clench.  Beside the bed, your leather slippers
rest like rudderless, diminutive ships.  Black
scars.  Crypts.  If they could let me follow,
I’d put the slippers on.  But as I cannot go
where you are, I will meet you halfway.  Tonight,
I will hold my love beneath me, grip her hair
like dark and supple reins.  That good fire growing
in my groin.  That swift black hearse in my veins.