My earliest memory is of you
At the kitchen table
With coffee and a paper.
My freshman tragedy is
Not you
Sitting at that ugly kitchen table.

What madness grips a man
To die in his son's mind
A stinging mental patricide.
Honorless seppuku.

You have no face till I'm 12.
A wispy ghost limb
That leaves an itch
Where it once was.
No bigger than a pinky.

You can blame my mother so far
Before that ________
Becomes a O

Did I ever tell you?
I dropped coins in the fountain
At the mall for years.
Wishing you alive.
And here I find you.
Fifty dollars in change.
Twenty empty years.
Two-thousand miles.
Still out of reach.