When my dad was a boy, he told us he used to visit his aunt Winnifred in Brooklyn. Winnifred had been married numerous times but she wasn’t married then. She was living with a retired merchant marine with a round belly and a lot of tattoos named Uncle Henry. Winnifred used to require that my dad, around age 8, 9, or 10, and Uncle Henry sit with her around a table in the dark kitchen while she called out to the dead. She wouldn’t allow Uncle Henry to speak because he wasn’t a believer, and she wouldn’t allow my dad to speak because his voice hadn’t changed yet. These were her rules. My dad died in August 2011, and his visits to me have been in poems.

How many

have died
in pits
in caves
under fire
or snow
or like
my dad
in bed
gasping
at dawn?

All of them.

I’ll die
like them—
another
who loved
the light
and watched
the dark
who woke
today
to a voice
he loved.

I’m helpless
despite
everything
I’ve read.

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