Three years after my father’s death
he goes back to work. Unemployed
for 25 years, he’s very glad to be
taken on again, shows up
on time, tireless worker. He sits
in the prow of the boat, sweet cox, but not
facing the body of the craft—he has his
back to the carried. He is dead, but able to
kneel upright, facing forward toward the
other shore. Someone has closed his
mouth, so he looks more comfortable, not
thirsty or calling out, and his eyes are
open and under the brown iris is the
brown line that appeared there in death—
earth under earth. He is calm, he is
happy to be hired, he’s in business again, his
new job is a joke between us and he
loves to have a joke with me, he keeps a
straight face. He waits, naked,
ivory as a carved figurehead,
ribs, nipples, lips, a gaunt
tall man, and when I bring someone and
set them in the boat and push them off he
simply poles them across the river
to the far bank. We don’t speak,