I sit here facing a glass of water. I have a family: a son, baby daughter.
\n Life\u2019s harder. Harder, and sadder. My father
\nhas stage IV lung cancer. He\u2019s dying, only faster. Fall, and he might
\nmeet his maker by winter. O let this cup pass, my Father. <\/p>\n
I sit here facing a glass of water doing its level best to conjure
\n his low, unhappy laughter.
\nA fashion sense that hated anything \u201cfancy-schmancy\u201d\u2014anti-dapper.
\nAnd such theatre! Talk back and he\u2019d hike his eyebrows in anger.
\nThree-pack-a-day-smoker with a bad ticker. Loved trippa, tongue and trotter.
\nEpic snorer, inveterate jaywalker, and, when he lost his temper,
\na spanker. Rarely spoke about the weather, shaved with a disposable razor,
\nusing a badger brush and bowl to work up a lather. Preferred his espresso with a cucchiaino of sugar, grilled his steaks<\/p>\n
to the finest shoe-leather. Let his pen hover above a cheque, a seconds-long
\ngesture, before touching down and setting free the dramatic
\ngarlands of his signature. At the beach each summer, I\u2019d stop at the edge
\nof the bone-cold water. He\u2019d stride past, bisected by blue, growing smaller,
\n and smaller, then dive under,
\nand disappear. I sit here facing a glass of water and imagine my father
\nbeneath the dome light of his blue Chrysler: whistler, one-handed steerer, moon-gazer.
\n After an all-nighter, he\u2019d stagger out to the kitchen counter,
\nfull of odor, having slept in his clothes for good measure.
\nYounger, he was on fire: high-flier, lady-killer, fast-talker
\nin black leather. He once ran a red
\nand tried to bribe the officer. \u201cIdiot licked his thumb and peeled off a tenner,\u201d
\nsaid his older brother, Dante, who posted his bail. Only a matter <\/p>\n
of time before he fell for his own bullshit
\n hook, line and sinker. Turned to poker: small-timer, uncontender,
\nhopeless hustler. So deep in hock, twice nicked my paper route money
\nto pay back a wager. The guy could be a real nightmare.
\nBut he never lost his posture, salvaged a certain swagger
\nfrom every blunder. Failure, for my father, was a triumph of style. He was <\/p>\n
a beautiful loser. Didn\u2019t own a single tool: screwdriver, plier, hammer, whatever.
\nWhen it came to the odd chore, he was a ditherer, a born quitter.
\nIt raised my mother\u2019s ire.
\n Once, on the receiving end of a blistering lecture,
\nhe handed her the shit-smirched plunger, said: fine, call the fucking plumber.
\n Rent past due, he\u2019d send her to dicker with the landlord.
\nHe put her through the wringer; she always threatened to leave him for another. <\/p>\n
I was the artsy brooder who thought him too dumb for culture.
\nI always corrected his grammar.
\nBut Saturday nights, if my plans came a cropper,
\nI\u2019d rent a thriller\u2014some kung-fu-master-with-a-missile-launcher blockbuster\u2014
\n and we\u2019d watch it together, faces blued by the screen\u2019s flicker.
\nHe lived for the plot twist, the surprise capper. His favourite movie? Goldfinger.
\nThe showstopper? Bond strapped to a table,
\n about to be scissored by a laser.
\n(\u201cDo you expect me to talk?\u201d \u201cNo, Mr. Bond,\u201d\u2014sez Goldfinger\u2014
\n\u201cI expect you to die!\u201d) He laughed and laughed on his lounge-recliner.<\/p>\n
This glass of water is holding out for me as I stare into it and remember
\nhow, Sundays, he\u2019d run a comb under the tap,
\n part my hair, hoist me to the mirror.
\nHe\u2019d read by gliding his finger across text, stop on a word, linger.
\nMade it seem like all I did was pester. \u201cNot now,\u201d he\u2019d say, \u201clater.\u201d
\nOnce he exploded at my mother and I stopped him before he could hit her.
\nAnd how, holding out our newborn brother, his voice had a quaver. <\/p>\n
Not that affection was out of character. He was just hard to decipher.
\nWe hugged once and, for a tender second, I thought he\u2019d say something further.
\nHe didn\u2019t, afraid perhaps it would seal the matter.
\n Beautiful, how water
\nglows in glass as dark draws closer. One way or another, we all fail each other.
\nBut I let that almost-moment be a marker that there was a there, there.<\/p>\n
Tonight it\u2019s just me and this water.
\n I know the picture. I learned it from my father.
\nA glass, half-full, and a man looking in, hoping everything blows over.
\nCab driver and gambler on a gurney, who thinks himself a failure.
\nWho doesn\u2019t dream of a do-over, life rebooted and in working order?
\nWho doesn\u2019t want the power to see exactly
\n where one should have turned the corner?
\nSoon I\u2019ll put a straw in water to slake his morphine thirst\u2014a last pleasure.
\nSoon nights will turn bleaker, his wife and kids crying never ever after
\nin the small hour. But to say nothing lasts forever is not an answer.
\nI need something better,
\n and will sit here, staring deeper and farther
\ninto this glass of water until that point when everything becomes clearer. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It \u201creversed the curse,\u201d we were told. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAn American balloonist has abandoned his attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a boat suspended by almost 400 balloons after experiencing technical problems over Newfoundland.\u201d\u2014 CTV News, Sept. 12, 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n These days, I sit on my ass in total <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We walked into it, and for the life of me by storm. Whiteness ate the gravel, We had driven up to talk, air our feelings The moment your hand found mine, it was <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bankruptcy<\/em><\/p>\n The lustrous rosette is proof bad things, Liabilities<\/em><\/p>\n Tied with string, a dry run at being San Pellegrino I sit here facing a glass of water. I have a family: a son, baby daughter. Life\u2019s harder. Harder, and sadder. My father has stage IV lung cancer. He\u2019s dying, only faster. Fall, and he might meet his maker by winter. O let this cup pass, my Father. I sit here facing a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":158,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[333,334],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nYou did it after waking and before turning in.
\nYou did it when seated at a meal.
\nYou did it when leaving and re-entering the house.
\nIn nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti<\/em>.
\nSome dipped into the font and exaggeratedly
\ntapped forehead, chest and shoulders.
\nFor others, it was all in the wrist: an up-down,
\nright-left flick like a drip-style brushstroke.
\nA few pinched thumb and fingers, made intersecting
\nincisions in air, inches from the sternum.
\nThe last time for me was the time
\nI was the last one with him. Life support
\nswitched off, face spasms and eye twitches
\nstopped. There we were, father and the son.
\nI was at a loss for what to do.
\nNothing between us was ever resolved.
\nSo I traced the holy seal upon his brow,
\nand felt myself strangely absolved. <\/p>\nWinning<\/h4>\n
\nair supremacy. High in the saddle,
\nI practise my thousand-yard stare. I was
\ndown, at odds with the world. Now, I\u2019m up
\nto my eyes in sky, head above water,
\ntaller. I\u2019ve given myself over to the laggardly
\ndrift of it, the feather-light yomp of it,
\nthe self-contented milk run of it all. Long
\nstory short, I want to make a life\u2019s work
\nof floating to the top, held in thrall
\nby candy-coloured cogs in the claw
\nof blustery gearings. What they say
\nis true: from this orbit, the view\u2019s to die for.
\nA Sun which oer the renovated scene
\nShall dart like Truth where Falshood
\nyet has been<\/em>, wrote Shelley, agog
\nover his own aeronautical ops. And can
\nyou blame him? With the sum
\nof my parts a steampunk pleasure craft,
\nhard not to boast how awesome it is,
\ndespite the bad legroom, to have my fill
\nof the firmament, like some Edwardian
\nadrenaline-junkie running the gauntlet
\nof rooftops, perfume-soaked kerchief
\npressed to his nose. I figure
\nI earned it. For years, I\u2019d managed nothing
\nmore than weighing my options, my mettle
\ntested against whatever might steady me.
\nI\u2019m clear of all that. I climbed and climbed
\nas if bounding the stairs by twos and threes,
\nand now, with a foothold, I feel, pound for pound,
\nas giddy as a plate spinning on a broomstick
\nbalanced on the world\u2019s nose. Before long,
\nI\u2019ll realize that, like a conclusion too eagerly
\njumped to, I\u2019ve missed the whole point,
\nand will need to take the situation
\nin hand, bring my luck down a notch.
\nBut at the moment, mediagenic,
\ncrescent-mooned against the blue, I\u2019m totally
\ninto this, freeloading at the prow
\nof a sardine-tin unit of one.
\nThe best part? Everything around me
\na backdrop to the cargo of myself,
\na brand of hands-free canoeing where I plot a course
\nusing whatever the breeze is brewing.
\nYears hence, tell them I threw my lot in with
\nthe hammocked buoyancy of upheld
\ngravity. Tell them I married horsepowerlessness
\nto helium. Tell them I was an expat
\nof Earth, yawed by a g-force
\nequivalent to hundreds of rubber bands
\nsprung free at once. It was
\na scream. Time and again, the festoonery
\ntugged at my heartstrings. At sea in this
\ndoor-knocker of a bird house,
\nthis straphanger of a crow\u2019s nest, I\u2019m a guy
\nguyed to the very limb he\u2019s out on, afraid
\nof ending up at the end with nothing
\nbut a swan song, the tale of a dream
\nthat strung me along. I\u2019m a guy looking
\nfor a safe place to come to grief. Until then,
\ncloud-slow, I lord over the same freeze-framed
\nstretch of coast. I wave to no one. <\/p>\nTadoussac Bay<\/h4>\n
\nI couldn\u2019t see you. It was as if the sky
\ncrashlanded or clouds had taken the area <\/p>\n
\nthe hanks of grass, the sun-blistered posts.
\nWe were being erased from the official
\naccount of the morning.
\nI stumbled forward, calling your name. <\/p>\n
\nall at once. But years of pretending
\nI was happy left even me guessing
\nwhen I meant the words I said to you. <\/p>\n
\ntoo late. World and colour parted ways
\nand the sense of loss spread itself around. <\/p>\nHard Times<\/h4>\n
\nof jade growing
\non a quarter-slice
\nwedge of lemon <\/p>\n
\nat times, go right.
\nThat a failed state can be
\na pleasing sight. <\/p>\n
\na tumbleweed
\nof decommissioned
\ntwigs is taking<\/p>\n
\nyesterday\u2019s thing.
\nThen what? Life raked
\nclear, losses cut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"