Dad in the vault of my heart
rattling the kindest wind of summerbones
screaming down the years back to hermosa
your knuckleheads and “eat your spinach”
all the time my eyes reaching up toward that light
I saw in you reflecting back
“I love that little twinkle in your eye,” you said
chocolate milk and summersun and sandy submarine sandwiches
if only I could have told you then how much it meant to lose you
it seemed like summer left for years, at nine
everything must have gone so dark
lucky is the girl who was I
hoisted up onto the ponies
how at first you lead me round and round the track
how later at the stables you watched
posting along then breaking to canter
smell of the sagebrush lifting in the wind
whole hillside of sun and the dry dust of the ring
you must have poured that light
into every black hole you came across
it wasn’t her fault she was that damaged
she told me all the time you were the only man she ever loved
windchimes sound like you
when the waves come up across the sea
when the fog lifts off over the afternoons
balboablue brightsun landings
~
VALENTINE BONNAIRE - WRITER 