on the corner seat by the end table we found in the old house,
I remove my glasses and rub reality at the bridge of us
because this final face time is actually our first. Time
to face my father a day before he faces the void, confused.
I meet my own each morning with toothbrush in a hand
scrubbing grief from all brave fronts. A minute and isn’t it
how it goes now, some cold fact. No one warned how time
slices us into a thousand versions of our worst selves, the bad
goodbyes. No one taught you what to say to the dying. Dad,
they’ve shoveled him into the screen of a family member’s
iPhone, leaning into his pillowed ear because they were there.
Brothers who had the cash to fly in. And I curl my legs
beneath the weight of a distance growing wider. Bye Dad,
no need to forgive. We know each other’s mistakes. Now
close your eyes, face what time is calling for you. The end
table wears a glaze of tears. How relics become functional.
Love you morphs into a picture of my brothers, mother,
and cousins smiling by the bed where my father will die.
A final family portrait framed by loss in the glow of a text
confirming he’s gone, so I unfold into my bed where dull
bodies stretch flat and well-tucked. In a sanctuary I made
for myself in a house he’ll never visit. Once he tossed
my little body up and over the water, curled and splashing
hotel pool-blue and bright. I held my nose from chlorine,
that time when faces were safe as air and private as joy.
We were so strong then, when it was a life we understood.
–
Candice M. Kelsey (she/her) is a bi-coastal writer and educator. Her work has received Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations, and she is the author of eight books. Candice reads for The Los Angeles Review and The Weight Journal; she also serves as a 2025 AWP Poetry Mentor.