Minus My Mother

My father 6 feet 4 inches tall 236 pounds, 56 years old and 4 months minus my mother. Waiting. For dinner he would feed me minus my mother salad from a bag, ravioli, broccoli. Frustrated at my meatless eating at my ceaseless food-on-plate pushing and me, at his ground-beef glaring	One evening I came home to him alone on the couch. Wrinkled. Shrinking without my mother. Waiting. My barely-worn striped sweater woolen, dryer-shrunk occupied his hands the way his wife's absence had taken new permanent residence. In a scene someone else seemed to compose, lacking her
he asked, "Can you still wear this?" "No. I can't."	he asked, "Can you still wear this?" "No. I can't."