You See Him Come...You see him come, always
at that same hour suspended
on the shops’ early drone, on the curses
of a carter driving the donkey Get up there,
damn you and flailing the air. My father
comes at this hour of light tired of rising,
with his sallow face and the melancholy
of the living under his eyes, when the living
don’t know what else to do to stay alive,
and Listen, ehi, you’ve got to listen he breathes
the words between his teeth no matter
where, let’s go ...and so he trudges slowly
through the fields (a handful of earth, daylight
breaking over the cobweb of the trees) my father
pants a little, he staggers
a little, you see him come
with a child’s first
weaning steps. Meanwhile
he murmurs softly, and sings
into my cradled hands that slow,