The Dark-Light of Spring by Eric Leigh
I. The stars were once just a handful for his sons to know major from minor, Cancer, Gemini, Cassiopeia. That year in school I learned mnemonic devices, and my father came home My mother faded to background eclipsed all of us, and the universe cooled of the night sky to his wall. With enough ambition, any day could be II. Two years ago, the undertaker shook my hand in reverse"—I still can't get my mind on right. As my father laid hands-folded that man who used to chase me around Now his face runs alongside ads in the memoriam my uncle has placed and sent to my brother and myself, as if by where he used to be, chart our course he fired through his own heart Anniversaries keep track of us Each year another plot point, showing where we've been since held us close, apologized for our loss, letter to letter, word to sentence, to say something, anything, III. That day when we entered the house no key in hand or under mat, was a bullet hole through the family went cartoon as the fat wallop of bat our inheritance, a dis- each trash can out for what and stared into our father's room: so neatly made. In the aftermath, of keep or pitch, save or throw. into Glad bags and stacking them It was only then we realized never turned on a single lamp, of the plastic pooled at our feet. its last coal and my brother brought I did the same, as if we could see IV. My brother is calling because I'm the only one who knows another year and what is there to do but go on Seems the vote came in, the word came down and the old workers already packing her with charges, When the coast is clear, the urge to grieve will be followed to the newly arrived. So it is with mourning. is a depth charge sounding out the limits of the space is the same one where our father bought us our first suits, all so we could be confirmed in a church and though their days are numbered, my brother says he can one brother so unable to live without the other in the truth about men. Brothers. Us. together. Proximity can be a trick of the light, intimacy my father got each time he said goodbye— V. The wind took the last of him long ago, The first year I couldn't cry just to put them away, unable to summon Only when I'm half-asleep "Horseshoes and hand grenades," remedy. "If it don't kill you. . ." his favorite If you rub too hard at the last remains the neural white noise of the eye, of his forehead, his Coke-bottle glasses. worn hands. Some stories can't be told under the lens of memory,
of rock salt on the black ice of the drive,
but my father had a need
pattern from mess. So we stayed the course
of winter nights, parroting the words he gave:
The fog of his breath rolling over us:
Big Dipper, Little Dipper, Belt of Orion.
how the constellations were yarns once spun
to recall direction, when to reap or to sow,
each night to a tale all his own:
Laz-E Boy, meatloaf, vodka martini.
in the heat of his light. This was months
before the supernova of divorce
to a spring in which I helped my brother
tape a glow-in-the-dark map
How we learned to pull tight
the curtains and turn off the lights.
made dark, any sky could tell you the story
you needed most to hear.
and said, "Mourning is a romance
around it, but I know he's dead-
in a pinstripe suit, I never loved him more,
the house, the belt still warm from his waist.
for backhoe rentals and used pickups
in a local rag, turned into bookmarks,
we don't already mark our place
by the North Star of the bullet
twenty-four months ago today.
as much as we do of them.
another thumbtack on the map
those funeral days when strangers
as they struggled to anchor
to forge their way like each of us must
when nothing is enough.
of our father, we did so
as strangers—
the door left open by police—
and the first thing we saw
room wall. We crossed over then
into this other world,
made contact with skull,
stars circling round,
ordered sky. What to make of it?
For his part, my brother turned
it could reveal, as I pressed my face
against the blast hole
magazines on the nightstand
in even rows, the bed
everything was evidence,
sorted into piles
How we worked in silence,
dumping drawers
on the porch, where we collected
ourselves at dusk.
we'd spent all day in failing
light,
the whole house counting down
to the same black
As we stared out across the corn,
the sun stoked
the visor of his hand
to brow. Instinctively,
how close we were
to him, how far.
how this week opens and closes, bound by the sturdy
hinge of loss that never wears thin. Our father is dead
making small talk about what we've heard from home:
the sickness and health, the impending demolition.
department store is next. The only class
that factory town ever had will soon be dust—
engineers calculating how each wall will give,
how ten floors will fall next Sunday afternoon.
by the impulse to forget. One day soon,
the empty spot on the skyline will mean nothing
No one knows we're missing him until we say it.
Friends apologize. Strangers buy us a drink. Each kindness
he used to hold. As always, what is not said is more
important than what is. The store of which we speak
led us through the ritual of tailoring, the magic
of a stranger making something from our measurements,
that never really fit—their heaven too small a place
in comparison to sky. In Brooklyn, it's already dark
still make out the twins of Gemini. An old story
but one my father loved: Castor and Pollux,
that their father placed them side-by-side in the sky.
What he didn't share was this: the truth about stars
You can draw a line between two bodies
be it ink or blood, but that doesn't bring them any closer
an ever-fluxing span. Still, when we hang up,
he says he loves me with the same stilted voice
a small and sudden comfort, that certain words
still turn a man all thumbs. As sure as salt, as stars.
but dead fathers make for stubborn ghosts,
and ours is no exception.
or drink fast enough to kill what was
left of him. And now I pull out his things
him from wreckage: his belt and wallet,
a few service medallions.
can I come close
to assembling his face.
my father always said, meaning close
but no cigar. Clichés were his home
cure-all, sermon on the mount.
One lesson he didn't teach:
of sleep or tears, a galaxy will blossom
underneath your lids—dark-light they call it,
twin skies that contain the only stars
I can convince to form the lines
Still, certain features refuse to be drawn—
the frown of his moustache, his work-
in stars, each detail a too-distant light
that must be magnified
which only knows to give in
equal proportion to what it takes away.
