Sitting with My Dad, Talking About Heaven
My dad says he had a nightmare once
that heaven was a large open field.
Panicked, he scoured for signs of life.
As a wobbly vocal-chorded teenager,
I realized everyone’s peace is weaved
in opposing patches.
I don’t say aloud,
that I imagine my dad living free
in a heaven without claws that clutch lungs,
in a heaven where he can divide his ideas
like loaves of homemade bread,
have a voice like a bell, calling cows for dinner,
from crowded and chattering fields.
I hope we’d recognize each other there.
That he’d be the same dad he is now,
and a new dad
and still my dad.
My dad says he thinks passing
to the afterlife
is like walking from one room
to the next.
No pain of being ripped from a body
you felt awkward in during childhood
to hatred in young adulthood
to understanding in elder years.
I pocket his thought, for days I am fragile.
that heaven was a large open field.
Panicked, he scoured for signs of life.
As a wobbly vocal-chorded teenager,
I realized everyone’s peace is weaved
in opposing patches.
I don’t say aloud,
that I imagine my dad living free
in a heaven without claws that clutch lungs,
in a heaven where he can divide his ideas
like loaves of homemade bread,
have a voice like a bell, calling cows for dinner,
from crowded and chattering fields.
I hope we’d recognize each other there.
That he’d be the same dad he is now,
and a new dad
and still my dad.
My dad says he thinks passing
to the afterlife
is like walking from one room
to the next.
No pain of being ripped from a body
you felt awkward in during childhood
to hatred in young adulthood
to understanding in elder years.
I pocket his thought, for days I am fragile.
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Kelli LageKelli Lage is a poetry reader for Bracken Magazine and Best of the Net nominated poet. She is the author of Early Cuts and I'm Glad We Did This. Lage's work has appeared in Stanchion Zine, Maudlin House, The Lumiere Review, Welter Journal, and elsewhere.
Website // www.KelliLage.com |