Yesterday would have been my father’s 86th birthday. Every once in a while when I call my mother I get my father’s voice on her answering machine; I’ve gotten to the point in my grief that my heart jumps with a smile instead of it shaking and jarring me. I’m glad my mother hasn’t changed it but I sure wish there was more. What I would give for more. My nephew gave him a tape recorder for his birthday a few years ago so my father could record his stories, but he never used it. I really wish he had.
The old phone message
survives;
I hang on the too short fragment
of your voice,
waiting,
longing for more,
unable to speak.
The silence that follows,
abrupt,
sharp,
final.
Beep.
Last Train to QVille 