Four father parables, or the Father trails a nozzle & hose forgotten during a hasty refuel, or the Father’s holding tank in dire need of fresh water, or the Father vibrates at the speed of light, or the father burrows through strata & igneous layers
the Father ambulates out of reach in 4-wheel drive / with each horn wail / with each muffler curse spewed / He shifts from over-drive / beyond-the-clutch to pater-speed / His sons keep their voices down / heads down / crash helmets cinched tight & goggles in place / His sophic epigrams / 8 cylinders piston & purr / downshifted for hills / the sons smell burning oil & brakes / steel radials fray / the Father holds steady with his hydraulic neck / their sonship to the moon & back / hoping the chassis holds / His exhaustion apparent in blown gaskets / tucked under His arms / they soar 4-doored above grid-locked traffic / the Father grins from the grill / sunlight glints from chrome below / clutch engaged for the final push against the upper atmosphere & vapor lock
or
the Father retires to a sea-side aquarium / mouth-miming conversations around His snorkel’s crook / plate-glass murky with His refusal to speak anymore / He’s tired & water-logged / wears an algae beard / His sons / young enough to laugh & old enough to feel pity / hide fishing tackle from visitors / bubbles rise from the Father’s mouth / the sons watch for sign or sound / knowing they could never live like this / once He was pelagic / caroused in kelp beds & coral reefs / successfully dodged nets & lures / an ocean fraught with peril / His war stories untold now / He never wonders what happened as He reads a sodden newspaper / butts His head without restlessness / His skin slowly greens / His sons call him Merman / & in moments of levity Gill / He finds none of it funny / in fact He finds it nothing at all
or
the Father becomes a phone line / His soul fiber-optic / eyes lit like a super-conductor / which is good / He’d never had a soul before / neither did His kids / now His arms open 3-thousand miles to make room for all 3 sons / actors in a live-feed virtual sitcom / He speaks to them in pulses / 3-billion amps/day / knows of the birth & death of stars / never forgets their birthdays / patches into satellite feeds linked to supercomputers / Über-Pater / King of 3 Million Watts / His fiefdom hums with transformers & cruciform supports / at light speed His mouth arrives faster than His words / at light speed 1 Father suffices / His arms already stretch so far they thin to nothing
or
farther & farther he retreats into the abandoned mine called home / a canary for companionship / light flickering from his helmet / his complexion pales / his sons shout / answered by wet echoes / occasional muffled dynamite blasts / he thinks he hears voices inquiring about his candle supply / dismisses them as tricks / trickles from the ceiling / coal fires blacken his body / a cut-out of darkness / to him every sky is the night sky / all news is the nightly news / the TV’s picture resolved into one monotonous shade / to pass time he feeds his bats etiolated crickets / legs still twitching / & of course he digs / pick-axe worn into a hammer / headlamp dimming / at this rate he’ll soon burn up in the earth’s core / already salt crusts his brow / his sons long ago retreated to their well-lit homes / when he reaches bottom / he’ll charter a boat / but is concerned about the one-way ticket / that he needs some one to place coins over his eyes
