' ' ' ' Your Dad Is...(For Debbie)

Although I know her best & it’s me she trusts The manager insists it’s he who’ll tell her her Dad is dead. He eager to show off his prowess in the newly acquired Sign language. His hands shape the sound she cannot hear searching the empty air for the meaning hidden there Death torn out of the sky. She goes berserk not because he’s conveyed the news but because of his inept fingers the bang bang mime of dead morphs mistakenly into the sign for our four legged friend. “My Dad is a dog? ” her fingers tear the air apart in fury. The ugly signs dropping to the ground in a big silent klunk. I tell her quickly what she needs to know & now she wishes back the supposed insult. His death still hanging there as if sculpted there. A rainstorm breaks as if trying to wash it away. I take her in my arms and she cries his death into me. All these years later her tears still nailing me to her agony.