Arya F. Jenkins
Wake
I waited to kiss my father farewell but the others came first
my accomplished sisters and brothers as
I was the youngest, unheard, unseen
except in the world of imaginary things that
mattered only to me and sometimes my father
Among them I played god, I admit.
Somber figures full of anticipation
weaved ahead of me, dutiful and aligned as I
struggled forward, slow and sad
The week before my father had
plunged to his death from his office 17 stories high
two years after writing his will—
Insurance will have to pay, my siblings said
He made sure we would all think of him gratefully in the end, they agreed
I am the one on whom no demands were ever placed
having arrived too late for anything
save to celebrate what had come before
and remained in the wake of our mother’s leaving with her ardor a
few years after I, the sixth, was born
I am the one on whose frame my father
rested his glance in family portraits, the
one whose hand he led up the Holy Communion aisle, the
first one called on his last day
Away at school I missed his convoluted jokes
random hugs and constant repetition of tongue twisters—
“She sells sea shells by the seashore,”
“I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream”
--to help my stutter
We sailed Electra, our thing
hauling in caches of Blue Marlin and Tuna
“Four fine fresh fish for you,” as the others didn’t want to be part of it
“Out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing happening”
Nothing but my father’s voice directing the wind
the balmy blue alongside us
and above, a cotillion of Common Terns
steering the figurehead of my chiseled visage at the bow
as if it knew better than all of us
how to navigate the vast quaking emptiness.
