BPR 52 | 2025
My pop let me steer when I was small
enough to snug between his belly and the wheel.
Any random intersection, he might hoist
me across the hand brake onto his lap to pilot
the wagon before returning me to earth.
As I got older, he’d make me
steer while he lit a smoke or shed his jacket.
His ashes arrived in a cardboard carton with
shipping labels and barcode, heavy enough
to trigger the seat belt alarm as we clipped home,
honeysuckle in the air, from the post office.
A reasonable person would have put the box
on the floor, but I—you know already, don’t you?
I held him in my lap. “You’re mine,” I told
the box dad dust, lifting my hands occasionally,
reckless to the wind, tempting the evening, swinging
our private chariot of steel and bone.
From Spectral Evidence (2024), Alfred A. Knopf