an icon of a man

I wrote this poem after Vicki died, and I read it again tonight.

We lost my Daddy this week, Rusty Hill, that icon of a man, who showed up when you needed him and always knew exactly what to say. Tomorrow he would have been 79. They told me he was on the couch, stretched out like usual. Looked like he was sleeping.

He's with the love of his life now, Vicki Lancaster Hill, but damn, this is hard.



I hate our basement
unless the sirens sound.
It is unfinished and dark
and stores boxes with pieces of who we used to be
and unfinished business
we will sort through later.
Where I come from, there are no basements.
If you dig, you drown.
The house I grew up in has a garage
where things get used or rot and ruin.
The garage is for laundry,
a mop or broom, the extra fridge, or tools, or Christmas.
It does not frighten me,
even with the spiders and palmetto bugs
and occasional slithering snake.
Home is home.
I visit Florida when I can,
see who I can,
but the sofa and the wall of windows are
inevitable.
There’s nowhere to hide when sirens sound.
And after everyone has gone
the television is our soundtrack.
Rusty turn that thing off
I’m watching Vicki
A blanket tucks around her,
a soft one,
a pretty.
A thin robe covers her while
she uncovers others.
We are midsentence when my father snores.
He does not wake himself, and
he does not wake at her first call, Rusty.
She is too soft,
but she tells me, He can’t hear
as though this is news.
Tries again.
Rusty
His eyes open.
He does not turn to see us.
He knows who is where and what has woken him.
He says What
but he already knows.
Go to bed, she says.
He might grunt.
He might say I’m fine Vicki.
He might claim he’s still watching.
I will in a minute.
He might roll and prop and lift and leave.
Jesus H Christ.
He knows how to laugh at himself.
Sometimes I forget he listens
when we talk,
Vicki and me.
It makes me smile,
these well-worn parts they play
in that way that I’m comforted by
the steady promise of daybreak.
His coffee making
Her one ice cube cup
Her leg tucked under
Her perfectly placed pause
After I’ve said what I’ve said.
The pause that makes me think
And dig
And sort
And better
I want to listen more.
In recent years,
I’ve been tired
Retiring to bed before midnight
To rise at 4
To write.
I’ve missed the moments
I knew I could lose.
I would have told you that
I longed to stand on a sandy shore
and look to the Gulf of Mexico
and the wind
to wisk the webbed mess
from my own dark basement.
I thought it was the sand and salt.
I thought it was wind and waves.
It was the wall of windows
and the woman tucked
who reached out her hand
to slow my spinning world
and asked and waited-
waited and asked-
the questions I wasn’t brave enough
to ask myself.
She’s in another room now,
one we can’t reach.
But my father-
My father is in Florida.
My father on the sofa by the wall of windows
listening to a longer pause.
And it makes me want my coffee black
with one ice cube.
instead of light and sweet.
He makes me forget oceans and storms.
He weathers it all.
He always has been,
always will be,
basement-free.

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