which one is dead?
i look at my father
his pictures
this strange altar i have made to him
to his mother and father
to my family
the farm in sweden
where he came from
grandfather
oldest
hung by his ears for wanting to go to school
instead of working the farm
someone told me
i was married to him in a past life
he did not know
how to love
bought the only thing she asked for
a colored tv
after she died
turned it up
way too loud
for decades
until he died
in the bathroom
when i was in high school
colostomy bag
applesauce with big spoons
brown roman meal bread
i watched as he bent down each year
to scrape the earth with a homemade tool
a piece of wood with long nails
he pounded through himself
he on all fours
pulling that comb across the landscape
scattering his seed
purposefully
into the furrows of all he was trying to forget
he came on the boat
1900 something
saved every bank receipt
no love letters
built his house with his own two hands
was a fine stone carver
mason
built a church in parkville
that called me home for awhile
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