Portrait & Shadow

by Andres Cerpa

The curtains sail into the room with the memory of presence behind them

while my father waits in the dark taking apart what is left of his former selves,
        like a pianist, drunk at the keys, playing the same four notes,

letting them ring in the pedals until they haul themselves back into sleep.

He says, I am shadow

& the thief at the seam of his spine slides through the blades of his shoulders,
        hollows the blood, while the dopamine cheapens

like a dollar-store lighter & suddenly, another streak in his Depends emerges as proof.

This too in Arcadia--

the meadow in twilight's last streak of red before he enters the tree line,

which is already waiting, its small footpaths like paintings held in storage,
        their deep palettes so close they strangle to a labyrinth

laced on an MRI-black. The wolf there tears at his tendons,

leaves him always in a fog, & if he emerges it is only to watch but not to enter
        the burning city & self he still loves.

He says, I am the smoke's mascara

& I know he is imagining the Bronx he can never return to,
        where his youth is held in the thin frame of a bicycle

as it cuts through a billow of smoke. The city burned each night & each morning
        he rose to ride through the rubble. The what was,

the father I hold onto to care for his shadow never gets old--

he is kind & clear. He rises each morning & lifts me onto the back of his bicycle,
        he pedals while I glide above the city in wonder.