This Is the Poem He Would Write for Me if He Was Going to Write Me a Poem

This is when he would tell me how

sorry he was that he forgot to

be a father. Well, didn’t forget, exactly,

he was just too tired, a little distracted, very worried.

This is when he’d tell me that

he did love me, he did, and

when I thought he didn’t? Those

were the times when he was

most disappointed in his life.

This is the poem where he’d write that he

knew he didn’t show love.

He felt love but showing it was

more than he could bear.

Sometimes feeling it drove him from me

with a force he couldn’t beat back.

This is when he would tell me

that each night his heart ached.

Every night the scar from his boyhood wound

tore open, making itself raw for morning.

This is the poem when he would

tell me how he knew I loved him, as a good daughter,

but that it only scared him never comforted him,

not until the end,

when his face was frozen and his thoughts on ice.