the neighbor who fights cancer
teaches my mom how to live
over walks and frozen yogurts,
through cracked lips and a thrashed chest
she savors the occasional Sunday smile
they’ll disappear in between naps
and mom reappears, like Moses from the Burning Bush
suddenly seeing the light that Dr. Phil could never bring.
the neighbor – Amy -
a broken candlestick, still burning
yet melting into itself
getting deformed by the day-
When did death
become the precipitant
to know the living?

and now, I think of nothing but grabbing my Canon
to capture the intimacies of my father
preserve the pinkness of his Hungarian nose
the nearly finished crossword puzzles he won’t let me in on
the mornings he remembers to floss
oh, and his beastly snores.
(those my ears could do without)

i think the lessons exist in him
some covered, waiting steadily for the right key

unlocked with a son’s embrace

and the question

‘Who are You?’