hole

I heard a poet say

when asked if they love God

that they have a God-shaped hole.

I have one of those—a hole:

like a home walked-out of

and I, the problem child

left to a fathering mother.

It is where God ought to be,

the poet said.

But poetry fills it instead.

In the home

I skew the sofas right,

move the center table to

where your feet liked to reach;

I place my school reports

and life’s trophies close

to your evening cinnamon tea;

I keep the door wide open

look out of it and down

the ever empty road.

Every day.

When asked what the poems are about:

God, the poet said. God.

¹

²

1. I am eighteen years old when I meet my elder brother for the first time. And suddenly our father is a stranger to us—to my brother, a presence where absence is all he knows; to me, a question: how do we forgive our fathers?

2. My brother calls my mother Mother, and makes our father tea.