| Two relatives I gain from a marriage | ||||||||
| that no longer exists pray for a sign | ||||||||
| from my father | find one in a Wyoming | |||||||
| hot springs’ stranger who shows them | ||||||||
| a chunk of meteorite | ||||||||
| It’s from the Czech | ||||||||
| Republic | which is where | deep down | ||||||
| my own body is from or at least where | ||||||||
| my soul landed | ||||||||
| It’s a healing stone | ||||||||
| like the meteorite my father hung around | ||||||||
| his neck after his father hung it | ||||||||
| around his neck | passed down patrilineally | |||||||
| so it will never hang around mine | ||||||||
| When I say I am jealous | someone asks | |||||||
| what doors do you keep open | ||||||||
| for signs? | There is no answer | |||||||
| to this question | I don’t want | |||||||
| a lingering ghost to tap me on the shoulder | ||||||||
| and if my father came healed | ||||||||
| I might not recognize him | ||||||||
| Who is my father when he is not | ||||||||
| the addictions and what created them? | ||||||||
| I don’t know | and so a sign would need to be | |||||||
| something unexpected | anything | |||||||
| I didn’t intend | though I pretend to intend | |||||||
| everything | It’s not enough to see | |||||||
| his name in the mail | so maybe what | |||||||
| I’m looking for is | ||||||||
| exactly this silence | ||||||||
| I already have | ||||||||