Never

for Jerome Kostel, June 24, 1933-March 25, 1996

my sister and I with our father, 1972

1.
As I drove home today, the smoke 
from a farmer’s field 
spread out over the highway until it lifted 
slowly, like the patient fingers of fog
reaching upward for someone’s hand. 
At sunset, I saw the contrail of a jet 
burning bright pink at the horizon, 
slashing heaven's underbelly.

2.
If I could make that morning summer, 
if I could keep you living,  
you would lean against 
the kitchen counter again,
eating cereal in a white shirt 
and burgundy tie before work,
the snow from yesterday's blizzard
that drifted high against our fence 
melting rapidly as if the backyard 
had underground heat-coils 
someone turned on, rivulets flowing 
over the slope like the rest 
of the coffee from your cup
that you poured into the sink – 
before you left 
through the back door 
carrying a snow shovel, 
before your wife 
opened the kitchen window
and called out good morning,
do you want more coffee?
and you called back to her yes, darling! 
Before you shoveled a path
through this gorgeous world
to the garage, before your heart 
soundlessly let go its black stitches 
and seized, 
before you fell face down 
on the cement heavy as thievery, 
the snowblower idling 
noisily on the sidewalk, 
your surprised arms straight by your sides, 
your legs lit by a shaft of sun 
that appeared suddenly without reason, without warmth.

3.
On your workbench in the basement
I found your navy-blue 
hooded sweatshirt with its rips 
and white paint stains, held it 
to my face to breathe in whatever 
ghost was left of you,
but its only scent
was rescue and never.
I put on the sweatshirt
and I don’t know how you fit 
into it, you were so tall – 
on me, the sleeves are too short,
leaving my wrists exposed and cold. 
Now I feel your clothes 
with no body wanting to keep going, 
to push along through the remembered 
rooms, as if you could nest 
and quiet the flapping birds in my chest, 
as if you could say don’t dream of saving me, 
as if you could be saved any longer.

4.
I don’t remember if the day was clear. 
I don’t remember your coffin 
poised over its hole, as it must’ve been. 
I remember the pile of soil beside it.
I remember the priest’s scuffed shoes 
and the crumpled-up kleenex 
in my sister’s hand. 
Today and all days 
I look for you everywhere: 
in the vacuum tubes of dusty radios 
you were going to fix, 
in the humming of power lines, 
in the hall-light on my pillowcase, 
in the places where the wind whips 
and ends, where these words stop. 
The windiness of evening, you are in 
the middle of the wind but without air, 
oh what difference 
could I have made, even if I had said 
your name 
before your heart 
stopped fighting its small war, 
the battle of your body now in the first 
miles of night, the wet and warm 
at the zero of your heart, 

beating its little song: 
up, go.