<div class="line">“Bought them in a minute and a half,” he says,</div>
<div class="line">“for thirty-three dollars Canadian.”</div>
<div class="line">My father proudly shows me his new shoes,</div>
<div class="line">which I admire.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">The next day he asks me to try them on.</div>
<div class="line">He wants to give them to me.</div>
<div class="line">I wiggle my left big toe against the leather.</div>
<div class="line">“A little large,” I say.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">I have given my father many gifts—birthday dinners,</div>
<div class="line">daily telephone calls, vacations, a new car.</div>
<div class="line">My father has given me genes for a long life,</div>
<div class="line">the values of thrift, generosity, and honesty,</div>
<div class="line">but the greatest gift is his pride and confidence in me.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Today my father says,</div>
<div class="line">“I appreciate everything you have given me.</div>
<div class="line">There’s just one thing …”</div>
<div class="line">“Yes? I ask.</div>
<div class="line">“I only wish,” he sighs, “that my father had accepted</div>
<div class="line">what I tried to give to him.”</div>


Wide-Hipped Women in Stucco

Last Reach

My Father’s Shoes

<div class="line">torment doesn’t wound</div>
<div class="line">terribly, terribly soon</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">when dribbled slowly</div>
<div class="line">in or out of tune—</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">hush by hush</div>
<div class="line">rune by rune</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">until this dish</div>
<div class="line">ran away with a spoon</div>


Super Dad Haiku

Call Me By My Name

Stainless

<div class="line">We met in rooms</div>
<div class="line">for the very sad time</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">the home we shared</div>
<div class="line">for thirty-odd years.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Our tears were not</div>
<div class="line">for all we had lost,</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">but washed against</div>
<div class="line">all that might have been.</div>


The Climb

The Nets

Today

Channellock Pliers

After Easter

A Conversation with Daniel Berrigan

<div class="line">Now into limbo depth of time</div>
<div class="line">Is fled that soul which had a man</div>
<div class="line">And silent, empty, earth pressed bone</div>
<div class="line">Remains, to learn decay alone.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Where to, where from, where hence, where gone</div>
<div class="line">None other knows, or cares, or can,</div>
<div class="line">A grab bag chance, a sack of skin,</div>
<div class="line">To mask our come, and going in.</div>


A Prayer for Ducks

Enchilada Night

Ashes to …

<p style="padding-left: 0px;">I am sitting in my stateroom<br />
on a ship in the Caribbean Sea<br />
watching old movies<br />
courtesy of satellite TV.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">From time to time I hear<br />
the voices a few seconds after<br />
the lips have moved—Nicole Kidman speaks<br />
through the mouth of Tom Cruise.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">Yesterday our ship passed<br />
through the Panama Canal<br />
as I read David McCulloch’s book<br />
<em>Path Between the Seas</em>.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">It was published in 1977.<br />
The canal was completed in 1914,<br />
and here I am, reading<br />
and observing, near Easter 2008.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">In my mind I hear<br />
voices from a century past<br />
recorded more than thirty years ago<br />
while I viewed old concrete canal walls one day ago.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">Now I struggle with movies out of sync<br />
even as today I welcome yesterday<br />
through the mind of a writer—possibly dead—<br />
Need you and I orgasm at the same time?</p>


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January 23, 2009CouplingAlan Fox

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January 23, 2009CouplingAlan Fox

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My Father’s Shoes by Alan Fox

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