Poem for My Father [“An antique spacesuit with a skeleton inside it.”]

An antique spacesuit with a skeleton inside it.

For many years, it has circled the earth.

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Sometimes, I arrive at a party carrying my head in my hands.

Sometimes, I place my head on the coffee table so it can tell jokes.

Then I leave to walk around in the garden

and let the open stalk of my neck absorb the moonlight.

___

My dead father slips overhead, invisible among satellites.

Laughter like broken glass floats over the backyard.

What am I without him, heedlessly tromping through my friend’s azaleas?

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When the guests start to leave, I slip inside through the garage.

I click my head back into place. Goodnight, goodnight,

it was a lovely party, is what I say, as if I had been there all along.

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How I love the grassy air. The air of nighttime. All those objects circling the earth:

spacesuit, space junk, hunk of rock. The moon is a satellite, too, but huge.

It is all the death in the world at once.