Strumming the Silence

for my Dad on this the first anniversary of his death

It’s been a whole year now with you on the
other side but never too far from here
as when I see you looking back at me from the mirror
or recognize in a snap flutter your hands
fitting my own now like a pair of battered gloves

“Fuck Death” I told you once & you just smiled
Yeah, I always knew you loved the misguided
bravado I inherited from you, even when you couldn’t
understand a goddamn word of it

& we still argue but now it’s only in dreams
where you drink from the bottle & look through me
with those pale blue eyes that I look back at you with
out of the years when we never bothered with tears
if only to prove to ourselves that we could