Carroll Beauvais
End of the Wharf, Mobile Bay
Eight hours ago on the other side, I emptied my father
into this same bay. His ashes were stark
against the dark green. I’d thought he would sink
to the bottom, but instead he spread out,
feeling for a wall in the pitch black, looking for the door.
I threw purple chrysanthemums and yellow daisies in his wake
to make it pretty for the people watching. His every dreg drifted
farther from the other. A sailboat left the harbor.
I saw my father fade to dark green.
Lying back on the wharf, my friend and I stare into the silent stars,
knees bent, our calves dangling over the edge. This light we see
could have burned out millions of years ago, it’s impossible
to tell what still exists in the heavens. My friend’s full cheek is silver
in the glister. She’s already becoming a photograph of the past.
I dip my feet into the warm, dark water.
Beneath this punctured firmament, my skin
grows colder. I see our earthly bodies dim, bone dust
settling to sediment.
The Arsonist as a Father
Late July’s heat and early evening still the trees.
I crank down the truck windows, and the air crowds,
swells to a huff, while my daughter sulks and twists
the radio knob violently. She opens and slams
the glove box, rifles through the center console,
looking for the evidence she needs
to condemn me. When I park, she shoves
open the rusting door then sits, waits for me to lead.
I lumber past the jungle gym and up the concrete steps
through the fog of smokers, don’t look back
when a man I know from the crack house
on Texas Street lights her cigarette.
Inside the church hall, I suck the black distraction
from the Styrofoam cup to fit in with the rest,
feigning recovery. I could devastate this cup,
crunch it to bits with the one hand, easy. But don’t.
It would scald the people next to me. My daughter,
eighteen and motherless, is seated beside me
like a parole officer. She’s come to confirm
what she already knows: These AA people
don’t speak to me; we don’t know each other.
When the hour is up and I’ve driven her home,
she’ll exit my truck, the backs of her thighs
leaving long wet streaks on the vinyl.
She’ll see my mouth, that hole, suffer
with want, and from the driveway, scoff
as I pull away. The black tongue of road
will put her behind me. Where I’m going
will devour her for good. Unless it doesn’t.
I’ll be hawked up on her doorstep, again.
The Last Phone Call
The last time I called, I put it off for a few days,
and then more, waiting till after 7 o’clock
when my minutes were free,
and it was too late. You’d eaten supper
and were already doubled-over in your chair,
nose to knees, as if in prayer.
The nurse tried to rouse you, held the phone up to your ear,
and I said, Daddy? And you said nothing.
I said, Daddy, it’s me. Are you there?
And you said nothing.
And fumbling, I said, Daddy, how was dinner? Was it good?
And you said nothing.
Blackness pitched across the signal,
the dark wad of silence clotting my throat,
and I said, Daddy, are you okay?
And you said nothing.
In the distance, a piano chord
played in a low key
perished. A lost bird landed
in a dead tree. And I said, Daddy.
And then the silence did not end.
