My father the empty house. My father the novel 

written with erasers. My father the cloud 

painted on the wall of a sinking ship. My father 

the goldfish forgets every lap around the bowl 
and I forget when I realized 
I'd never see my father again, that he'd died 
but gone on breathing. The other day, 

immediately after reminiscing about my move 
from Ann Arbor to Blacksburg twenty years ago, 
my father was surprised to learn 
I no longer live in Michigan and asked 

when I'd moved. My father the hole in the air. 
I speak to him with the same voice 
I use with our cats and deer in the yard, 
a voice meant to soothe, to reach in 
and pet his brain, just as I imagine 
he once spoke to me: my father the child 
is unlearning himself. Ending in the sense 

that everything is, no more or less. That a black hole 
makes no apologies for its appetite. That you can't 
dig your way out of water. My father the dream
of the echo of the story of the rumor of the man 
who isn't there.