Rachel's Dad
RACHEL’S DAD
She was his daughter
and beautiful music
He leapt and bound in a
circle of bright light like
an ecstatic dancer possessed
by the rhythms of hard-driving
cadences that rocked his spirit
with the pulsating energy of
a father in love
But the music was brief
Now he dances in flashbacks,
fragmented sounds of faint hope
and promise that ambush his
attention like the feral call and
answer of wilderness carnivores
which, heard in the mists of
complex edge condition in the
fragile ecology of remembrance
and denial, invite apprehension,
anticipation and fear, but then,
but then just disappear before
the straining intellect can
begin to comprehend
Once an All-American sprinter,
a good rugby player, an intellectual
hard ass and more, after twenty-eight
years, he still cries when
no one’s looking!
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