WEDNESDAY

My father, a mercurial merchant, told me

About flowers and, once, about sex, the fool,

He made a vegetable soup the like of which

No cook ever made again. He did not love me

And I am full of woe because he did not love me.

At the ripe age of 42 I wish to mend

What was torn between us. Dad, where are you?

I am mad with that question, "wod" as Chaucer

Used to say. And my father is dead, in a grave,

And I am a father, my son looks up to me, I

Slap him for talking back. Father, son, let's

Begin again. Let's go out to a valley, farms

Around, green grass and crimson clover,

Bees, and little animals benign, owls

Blinking, lay ourselves out beside a stream,

Naked, lounge, in love with one another.

Come back, father, little son, what I offer

Is just, is just human. Oh, Wednesday falls

Again. I am back, O, I am back where I began.

I can't stand it. Father, son, how many times,

Between coming and going, must I call and call?