If my father decided to do it,
like he confessed, his arms flailing
towards a sky made of nothing,
would it be quiet,
or would his stomach have kept him
afloat like neonatal koi, so thin
I could forge a riverboat from his skin?
I’m trying to say this simply.
I extract metaphors from his body.
Such as, they’re playing your favorite show.
Or a draft of this where I write,
His face TV lit, a pale, 3am, x-ray.
Tell me it is possible to grieve
the still-living. Tell me the ghost I see,
carved out, hollow, floating
in the Han River, is the father
I’ve waited all my life to save.
