Svetlana Litvinchuk
Father as a Lost Landscape
After Karan Kapoor
I’ve heard that to eventually find the end of the knot of unsolvable
things is to unravel mountains into river. Lay the whole untangled
earth down at your feet, comb the sand. Unwind fingers braided
into hair. Pluck fishing line from the nests of sea turtles.
Sometimes when I try to sing I can still hear you cringe like a turtle
catching a fishhook. Sometimes when I think of all you didn’t teach
me I wince at all that you did: like how you can miss someone who’s
always been right there. Like the way alcoholics teach us
that the act of desiring something can poison those who love us.
How no farewell can leave us better off than the one in which hands
can’t find each other for the space between them. There is no death
more final than the death of flowers.
What can a man who bends steel know of delicate things like these?
They never tell you that death never comes quickly. That it’s just about
when you start the countdown. I cannot remember you any other way
than a need
by the way you always show your alcoholic thirst. It compels you
even in death to sleepwalk to the lake with rod in hand to greet
the slippery scales of dawn. To open your mouth and pour in the sun,
the burning on its way back up an attempt to drown your wasps.
What does it say about your need for liquids that I am your daughter
and have this endless craving for the sea. It calls to me inviting me
to drown my face in it. Promises to wash away my childhood.
What form will you take now that you’re gone?
I see you as a bottomless lake. Water doesn’t feel pain. This must
be the heavenly place that warms your belly you’ve searched for
all your life, the fish so drunk that they jump into your hands, hands
so deep in your pockets that you never have to worry about them
getting wet. I’ve now written a whole book about how you’ve never
written me a song. About the way an alcoholic knows how to turn
any liquid into fire, burns stomach lining while sliding it down throat,
turns 50 grams— just 50, please— of something reassembling water
into weapon. Something transforming anger into pity. On this day
spent elderflowers snow on my garden like sky sliding out
from behind a cloud breaking itself into flowers. The red wasp
is still there guarding the entrance gate, barring me entry. I try
to greet you but it brandishes its stinger in response. Says this
is no road for me to follow. I didn’t know that no funeral meant
no goodbye. The father wound is an ulcer. Is ulcer the opposite
of cancer? The day before you died
you lied on the beach of your mattress fileted open
by the protrusion of your xiphoid process, gulping
like a fish pleading for the return to water, gills parched,
fins spread wide, you were gasping wordlessness.
The day before that mom says you called my name,
said my departure was not necessary, you said
You don’t need to leave, which implies that leaving
is optional and yet you’re gone forever.
After Karan Kapoor
I’ve heard that to eventually find the end of the knot of unsolvable
things is to unravel mountains into river. Lay the whole untangled
earth down at your feet, comb the sand. Unwind fingers braided
into hair. Pluck fishing line from the nests of sea turtles.
Sometimes when I try to sing I can still hear you cringe like a turtle
catching a fishhook. Sometimes when I think of all you didn’t teach
me I wince at all that you did: like how you can miss someone who’s
always been right there. Like the way alcoholics teach us
that the act of desiring something can poison those who love us.
How no farewell can leave us better off than the one in which hands
can’t find each other for the space between them. There is no death
more final than the death of flowers.
What can a man who bends steel know of delicate things like these?
They never tell you that death never comes quickly. That it’s just about
when you start the countdown. I cannot remember you any other way
than a need
by the way you always show your alcoholic thirst. It compels you
even in death to sleepwalk to the lake with rod in hand to greet
the slippery scales of dawn. To open your mouth and pour in the sun,
the burning on its way back up an attempt to drown your wasps.
What does it say about your need for liquids that I am your daughter
and have this endless craving for the sea. It calls to me inviting me
to drown my face in it. Promises to wash away my childhood.
What form will you take now that you’re gone?
I see you as a bottomless lake. Water doesn’t feel pain. This must
be the heavenly place that warms your belly you’ve searched for
all your life, the fish so drunk that they jump into your hands, hands
so deep in your pockets that you never have to worry about them
getting wet. I’ve now written a whole book about how you’ve never
written me a song. About the way an alcoholic knows how to turn
any liquid into fire, burns stomach lining while sliding it down throat,
turns 50 grams— just 50, please— of something reassembling water
into weapon. Something transforming anger into pity. On this day
spent elderflowers snow on my garden like sky sliding out
from behind a cloud breaking itself into flowers. The red wasp
is still there guarding the entrance gate, barring me entry. I try
to greet you but it brandishes its stinger in response. Says this
is no road for me to follow. I didn’t know that no funeral meant
no goodbye. The father wound is an ulcer. Is ulcer the opposite
of cancer? The day before you died
you lied on the beach of your mattress fileted open
by the protrusion of your xiphoid process, gulping
like a fish pleading for the return to water, gills parched,
fins spread wide, you were gasping wordlessness.
The day before that mom says you called my name,
said my departure was not necessary, you said
You don’t need to leave, which implies that leaving
is optional and yet you’re gone forever.
--
Svetlana Litvinchuk is a poet and permaculture farmer with degrees from University of New Mexico. She is the author of a debut poetry chapbook, Only a Season (Bottlecap Features, 2024). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Apple Valley Review, Sky Island Journal, Plant-Human Quarterly, ONE ART, Apocalypse Confidential, Union Spring Review, Longhouse Press, and elsewhere. Originally from Kyiv, Ukraine, she now lives with her husband and daughter on their organic farm in the Arkansas Ozarks where she derives satisfaction from watching cucumber plants climb their trellises skyward. She is a reviews editor with ONLY POEMS.
Svetlana Litvinchuk is a poet and permaculture farmer with degrees from University of New Mexico. She is the author of a debut poetry chapbook, Only a Season (Bottlecap Features, 2024). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Apple Valley Review, Sky Island Journal, Plant-Human Quarterly, ONE ART, Apocalypse Confidential, Union Spring Review, Longhouse Press, and elsewhere. Originally from Kyiv, Ukraine, she now lives with her husband and daughter on their organic farm in the Arkansas Ozarks where she derives satisfaction from watching cucumber plants climb their trellises skyward. She is a reviews editor with ONLY POEMS.