In the shadows of the backyard,
swung vertical, on edge,
like a topsail puffed taut in a wind,
the hammock has unloaded a pillow,
some half-glasses, an autobiography.
They lie scattered at my father’s feet.
He died a year ago, strung between
retirement and the monitors
that told the waiting was over.
Now his unblinkable bad eye
appears far less surprised
as I steady him on the lawn,
back him into the tricky hammock,
and relax with him, finally,
in a curve of canvas,
no longer the seat of my resentment.
Originally published in Scintilla.
D. R. James, retired from nearly 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections is Mobius Trip (Dos Madres Press).