Reclaiming Perspective, and: "U.S. Tariff & Import of Japanese Velveteen", and: Resilience

Reclaiming Perspective

Confession: the week after you saw him, he walkedthrough the city's headlightsin a suit. A stranger

returned him through pinpricks of sunrise. And again.And again—with calls each timeto report his aimless shadow.

He could end anywhere and it's that absolutethat scared me. You want to believe I'm shame-sewn, faulty. You want to know

why he's in there? Do you think I don't seethe other residents nod off or pace outbroken thoughts? I'm grateful now

the doors fight back. He must not amble to the pitchof a whim. Oh he's durable, my father,but each day he wakes with a little less

truth. Or truth that won't help him.His window looks to a lodged plum tree.He no longer repeats

his regrets. His small roomis grand enough to put his name on the wallsix times. He has enough space

in his day and mind for unpredictable syllablesand stock prices that roll and saddlehis screen. They gleam, painless.

Misnomers and "accidents" no longertorment him. True, he has bonesfor concrete. Sometimes his old city creeps over his face.

I can't break him of that. I had to decidehow far to unravel. For months, he piled unopened mailon his bed, size-sorted. All September he gorged

on weeping. I wanted to wake knowingthat the dark hadn't held himat knifepoint. Believe me—his life is a lot

to absorb. I still expect him to remember to sleepand kiss and mete or shutter the sunwhen it chunks through his windows. Let soon

not come yet to his doorway. In phone calls, he pulls outany name that sounds about right. We laughat his small creases, and the losses

don't scare me like they did. Maybe I'm payingfor him to be outlined in the blousy sunand to cup casual melodies each night.

Nothing is insignificant, but I know the roomholds all of his history. There's no doubt he's dipping belowmembranes. I gather his failure

at the corners of my mouthto use on relatives who intercede: He's softeningto broad, precious pauses. He's safe, I'll tell them.

Take the week he started wearing his sockseight days in endless conservation, his toes grownwith fungus. Take the days he spoke

the immediate future as an ancient alphabet.A time will come. His brain is dismantling, but he isn't waiting. His identity is not where he left it.

I never want him to knowhe's been wrong. He breathes through his teeth,then takes them out. There's always crud

on the underside, and I'm so tiredand unprepared for this. How many rules and lessonsmake a whole life? He can't say, but of course I know.

"U.S. Tariff & Import of Japanese Velveteen"

Throughout his apartment, each fistof paper, his desk surrenderedto unbidden cyphers and diagonal lines.

In closets, mini motel soaps and sloping shoe treesin a combustion of naphthalene. Moths folddead and thin in the bathtub. A sign

on the faucet, "pull up—with love," which is cheerful until I recallthe architecture of his once concentrated

anger. In the bathroom, a pairof stretched briefs hangs in stout crests.And everywhere ample paper napkins

folded to each narrow inchand nested in cracks and slipsof his dresser. In hollows, small trinkets, keys,

broken things without motion. A tin canof okra. Outside the window, more than half the cityscrawls, and after that, the bridge.

But I am pulled to a complete peripheryand entire duration: nameswritten in steady order, intricately wrapped

in rotting rubber bands. Pulsesand swells of Arabic cursive, his ancient report cardsand reddish cylinders of nickels. I see

what others rarely locate: the marrowof my father. And blueumbrellas, his partial dentures in pink...