My father’s fine German camera closed up
Slim like a metal book, and popped open
With a lens sheath of accordioned leather.
Fascinated by its secret works, 
I toyed and played with it, unscrewing this and that,
Until at last I had broken it all for good.
I hid it under the bed in a shoebox,
And he never mentioned it to me again,
Nor I to him.

And so it was for decades, that we talked
On weather, jobs, price of gasoline,
But never secret shames, heart yearnings,
Pentinence, exaltations; no undertow
To that smooth sea.

My father had a secret place in his head
Where the vessels had run thinner, turned by time
And one day they let go his vital blood so that
it crushed the pale pink flesh of his mind
instead of nourishing it.

In the cool quiet hospital room
I watched them forcing the air into his lungs 
And it took so much effort for me to go to him 
While my mother and her friend watched,
Murmuring what words tumbled out of me 
As he lay without response,
But our last words had been spoken three weeks ago.
Nothing else between us at last,
No eye contact, no sudden truth,
As I tried to take his one working hand
While he kept reaching, reaching, reaching
For the breathing tube in his throat.