Dear Dad,
Here today, it will be in the 70s,
dry and sunny, ideal fishing weather.
In Lisbon where Bill is, rain.
Where Barb lives, Vegas will be
120 degrees in the shade. How is it
where you are? I can’t tell anymore.
I can tell you it’s a steady 80 degrees,
the sunset on the beach still spectacular
where we buried you far from Iowa,
the family farm where weather ruled
what froze, what died or rose, what
washed away. Hurricane Floyd took
yours and mom’s ashes. I picture
them drifting down like the fish flakes
in our tank at home, empty now;
our pygmy puffer fish sucked up
by the too-strong filter I bought,
vanishing overnight. How I miss
your emails, every morning
a weather report, as if knowing
what the troposphere might send,
kept us close despite distance,
the unknown. Did you ever cry so hard
your lower lids folded down briefly as if
pushed by tide, the whites of your eyes
bloodshot from grief? We never talked
about that weather system, only
of what was possible and given,
you who followed the shadow of fish
on your fish finder, who knew
all things come to pass.
