POEM A DAY 2022: Prayers, early and often, for David Dulles

My grandfather

Face bruised

Cuckooing to the ceilings of his assisted living facility

Smelling of bare minimum

Eye contact like fear

I would tell you about reading bell hooks

Thinking about whether I’d will

To extend myself for the spiritual growth

Of my family

And whether they’d will to extend themselves for mine.

Love and abuse cannot coexist

I imagine walking with you

Feeling you see me

While I tell you the hours of commentary

That swim in me

And at the same time

I don’t even remember what you look like or what your laugh sounds like

Or what you’d say in response to my musings

I’ve forgotten you

This boy in an old man’s body

Suddenly sings

~We have many coconuts~

Just like he used to when I was a kid

When it was both sad and normal that I had a grandpa who couldn’t be around

And instead sang silliness through the phone lines

My dad’s connection allowance

Boundaries easier with age

My mom and I join him in the next lines

The chorus of you’re a grand old flag

Faking patriotism that died years ago.

Namesake dictates that I’ll be

A country loving villain ready to squash hearts

Across the globe

But the last person to really aspire to it

Got stuck there

Psych diagnoses

And a typewriter for spelling out grand plans

This year he won’t run for president but he’d accept a position in mr biden’s cabinet

For all the fog and absurdity

And the literal crime

And the desire for goodness

And the creation of children who wouldn’t choose their circumstance

He says to me every time we collide

Very able Allie

Three times so I know it’s true.