Boundless Kingdom

In the dream my father did the forbidden
so I would know the difference between
"the prince of light and dark"
What darkness would allow such betrayal
of a father twelve years dead

What darkness would allow me to wonder
if the dream were memory speaking
when I know he'd have given his life for me
Did give his life for me, forsaking art
to buy me coats, shoes, bread

The bed in the dream was narrow as a vein

I awoke to my own cries and no one
there to soothe me as my father would
if he could come back from the dead
though he would need to gather his ashes
from the sea where we poured them

and fuse to one of those fish
that seem fluid glass, blue streaks for bones
moving toward me as I stood at the shore
to call and call my sorrow at betrayal
He would hear me and leap for the air

shattering the surface as if it too were glass

I would wade in, bend toward him, my long hair
dark with water, my hands empty of all but the weight
of water moving with the constancy of blood
through my wrists up my arms to the heart contracting
with the effort of keeping track of him

as he slipped deeper off, untouchable as light

 

Poems by Lynne Knight: