Elegy for My Father

Even before you decided to die

something inside you dried up.

I'm sorry I failed

was all you could say,

and not even in person.

I need to see you

someone called to me, beckoning me

down the hallway of my grade school

to my mother waiting

to tell me

what you did.

It wasn't small.

Where are you, John?

your answering machine cried.

I still can't locate you.

I'm still sifting through

all these dishes and sweaters, aching

to make you into something,

to make this into something

I can give you, something

your smallness can hold.