我父亲曾经打破了一个男人的手在排气pipe of a John Deere tractor. The man, Ruben Vasquez, wanted to kill his own father With a sharpened fruit knife, & he held The curved tip of it, lightly, between his first Two fingers, so it could slash Horizontally, & with surprising grace, Across a throat. It was like a glinting beak in a hand, And, for a moment, the light held still On those vines. When it was over, My father simply went in & ate lunch, & then, as always, Lay alone in the dark, listening to music. He never mentioned it. I never understood how anyone could risk his life, Then listen to Vivaldi. Sometimes, I go out into this yard at night, And stare through the wet branches of an oak In winter, & realize I am looking at the stars Again. A thin haze of them, shining And persisting. It used to make me feel lighter, looking up at them. In California, that light was closer. In a California no one will ever see again, My father is beginning to die. Something Inside him is slowly taking back Every word it ever gave him. Now, if we try to talk, I watch my father Search for a lost syllable as if it might Solve everything, & though he can't remember, now, The word for it, he is ashamed... If you think of the mind as a place continually Visited, a whole city placed behind The eyes, & shining, I can imagine, now, its end- As when the lights go off, one by one, In a hotel at night, until at last All the travelers will be asleep, or until Even the thin glow from the lobby is a kind Of sleep; & while the woman behind the desk Is applying more lacquer to her nails, You can almost believe that the elevator, As it ascends, must open upon starlight. I stand out on the street, & do not go in. That was our agreement, at my birth. And for years I believed That what went unsaid between us became empty, And pure, like starlight, & that it persisted. I got it all wrong. I wound up believing in words the way a scientist Believes in carbon, after death. Tonight, I'm talking to you, father, although It is quiet here in the Midwest, where a small wind, The size of a wrist, wakes the cold again? Which may be all that's left of you & me. When I left home at seventeen, I left for good. That pale haze of stars goes on & on, Like laughter that has found a final, silent shape On a black sky. It means everything It cannot say. Look, it's empty out there, & cold. Cold enough to reconcile Even a father, even a son.