Wesley Sexton
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Forgiveness Time

Three times in the last five days
the thought has come to me, while busying
my hands, that my father is dead,
not a question but a thing I’ve known
& am now remembering, then
that swallowed lightning feeling of fear
in the stomach, only my father, in all likelihood
is not dead, just floating like a yellowed leaf
atop the standing water of his life. He wants
to die, perhaps, told me so once, saying gravy
saying never expected this much
just hasn’t guts enough to make it happen
so he leans into the workaday vices,
chipping away at himself in little bits
while I let what’s worst in him stand in
for the whole, the shit-stained rag
I rub over everything I’m afraid will hurt me.
Meanwhile the days keep happening
the fountains in the park getting fuller
with hopeful pocket change, the leaves
on the trees taking into themselves
more & more copper, the voicemail box
filling up, the same message each time:
I didn’t want anything & I can’t do it
anymore, tired of playing MacBeth
at the dinner party, making everyone look
at the ghosts in my eyes. I’ve wasted
too much time caring & trying not to care.
I’m ready to be the coolness that people
throw their pocket-change hopes into, ready to feel like
the flowing thing I am. Your life is a table,
says my heart. The plates are being cleared,
says my heart, & if you’re going to keep
clutching something in your dumb fist let it be
something you love. And dear readers,
my heart, fat though it is with lovesickness,
makes a compelling argument. I’ve got
to work my way back to thankfulness.
This man will be no man forever & needs
to hear my voice. The sun still shines
on his bald head like he’s made of nothing
but chlorophyll & nectar. One day,
maybe, he’ll bloom, like the porchside iris,
the one that did nothing the last four seasons,
then suddenly one week in July
lifted a straight papery fist up
into the sky, showing everything its yellow.

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Wesley holds an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and his work has been published in journals such as Indiana Review, the Rumpus, Tar River Poetry Review, and Poetry Northwest. He lives in Cincinnati.