by Edward Lee
Infinite Moments with Dead Fathers
It’s not the drive, the road laid bare.
The car hums its gospel
of wind under steel, the thin
clasp of road choir, the hills open
to arms, to the uncaring.
It’s not the end of the world,
the horizon dips over TN hills,
rows of pine, yellow dead branches
still attached to the breathing
trunks, corpses tied to tombstones.
One does not just drive out
of a life, no matter who dies,
the 6:30 AM breath is not
the last, maybe it’s the one after,
the nurse looking through glass
at the end of pain. His new wife sleeping
in tea-stained teeth,
in a dream where a lover
drives away from a woman,
her hair so young, her black scarf
tumbling out of frame, unrolling
as the film from a canister.
It’s not the snoring of daughters,
the sun sitting up, the clear
push of a ruined sky, and just
at the corner, where the overpass
is more concrete than human signs,
a light, a dying firework, then
a small voice fills the car.
Its sound deep as disappointment scars,
as a memory of a father holding movie tickets,
his eyes calm, his hand warm.
Then it’s gone and what
follows is different, not better,
but different. And a daughter
stirs in the passenger seat and the air
is filled with talk of breakfast,
and coffee and plans with friends.
C.L. Liedekev is a writer/propagandist who lives in Conshohocken, PA with his real name, wife, and children. He attended most of his life in the Southern part of New Jersey. His work has been published in such places as Humana Obscura, Red Fez, Open Skies Quarterly, River Heron Review, and Vita Brevis. His real goal is to make the great Hoboken poet/exterminator Jack Wiler proud. So far, so good.
Edward Lee is an artist and writer from Ireland. His paintings and photography have been exhibited widely, while his poetry, short stories, non-fiction have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen, Feral, The Blue Nib and Poetry Wales. He is currently working on two photography collections: Lying Down With The Dead and There Is A Beauty In Broken Things. He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Orson Carroll, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Boy. His blog/website can be found at https://edwardmlee.wordpress.com