as my silent immigrant parent
My father was a wandering Aramean;
he placed a dead deer in my hands.
My father was a wandering Aramean
and erased for me the path to his home.
My father was a wandering Aramean
whose goodness was the oar that rowed him
in the boat of his soul. Alone
my father was an Aramean. He
spotted the dark in blurred halos,
my father. Was an Aramean wandering
because he’d been cast out by beasts?
My father wandered. Like an Aramean—
his feet were his indigent’s shoes.
He unveiled himself
to the air like a shivering bride.
My father, my wanderer,
walked on the ice near our home
like a heron. My father
was ice of the lake, a bird
of sparse plumage. He wandered, as feathers
fly.