Teaching My Father to Use Zoom
I
let’s practice, I say, I will send you a link
what’s a link, he asks and I’m careful to smile
and become a slower version of myself.
the meeting is Tuesday and at 81 years-old,
his first. I guide his hand as each finger
gives a slight tremor over the mouse,
then slipping to the other room I lock eyes
with my own face on the screen, staring hard
into the box where I hope my father will appear.
II
at midnight the halls of their home are punctuated
with the white glow of so many nightlights,
and my father is only half father now.
each string of angry whispers, the rapid mutter
like a mad percussion – the night terrors,
a 2am tussle with enemies unseen
bits of wild language climb the walls and curl
into corners. my mother holding her book
part weapon/part shield in case his fists
armored in sleep and sour memory
cross the tangle of sheets
and beat upon the bed like rainfall
III
I am six years old when the catfish buckles
against the line, my father behind me
until like some prehistoric creature
surrendered to the air, I hold the slick tube
of his body in my hands, mouth agape
stunned by the weight of this victory
then watch as my father dismantles my catch
and I learn what it is to satisfy
your own need with the loss of another.
IV
my father weeps when he holds
my infant daughter, her face clean
as a porcelain bowl in his hands.
I can’t look into his soft eyes
because I know now that soft things
can pierce your heart just the same
and that pain can spill
from the body to fill a room
like a single drip leads to a flood.
V
I’m eight years old when my goat runs herself
into the pond by the magnolia tree, bobbing
like an apple under a warm, silver morning.
my father pulls her out by the hind leg
dragging the body in a wake of dark water,
blue tongue and milky stare
knees soggy with my own silent prayer
I pick at the spongy cattails on the bank
and learn there are things a father cannot save.
VI
I am running out of my father
like the lake loses its depth in late July
but there – in the glowing space
my father appears –
his eyes quickly register shock
at his own image, and mine.
can you hear me, he asks,
I can hear you, I say over a distance
that is much more than a wall
and we sit like that as I study his face
seeing him so clearly that for a moment
I forget he is in the next room.
Lauren Kalstad is a Dallas-based poet. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from New York University and currently teaches at the University of North Texas. Her poetry and essays are forthcoming or have appeared in “Edible,” “World Literature Today,” “Thimble Literary Magazine,” and “The Belleville Park Pages.”