I begin with near-silence,<\/p>\n
the droning refrigerator,<\/p>\n
a dog barking far off.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve just fallen asleep<\/p>\n
as morning splinters<\/p>\n
through the blinds.<\/p>\n
He kicks off his boots,<\/p>\n
braces himself on the dresser,<\/p>\n
pulls at the leg of his jeans.<\/p>\n
Something wakes you\u2014<\/p>\n
a knocked over jar of change,<\/p>\n
a picture frame falling flat.<\/p>\n
You must miss the feeling<\/p>\n
of waking in the night<\/p>\n
knowing exactly where<\/p>\n
you are, hearing only<\/p>\n
your brothers\u2019 muffled voices<\/p>\n
through the wall. Years later,<\/p>\n
nights when my friends and I<\/p>\n
stay up until dawn,<\/p>\n
you\u2019ll wake this way again<\/p>\n
to laughter resonating<\/p>\n
down the hall. One night,<\/p>\n
to meet our girlfriends,<\/p>\n
J. T. and I will sneak<\/p>\n
to Arroyo Vista Park.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll wedge a drumstick<\/p>\n
in the window-track and wait<\/p>\n
for our knock at the door.<\/p>\n
After sending J. T. home,<\/p>\n
you\u2019ll say When it\u2019s quiet, I know<\/em><\/p>\n somethin\u2019 aint right. <\/em>Because<\/p>\n this all feels close enough<\/p>\n to the truth, and because I have<\/p>\n no evidence I was made<\/p>\n the usual way\u2014not even a picture<\/p>\n of you and my father together\u2014<\/p>\n I\u2019ve made this:<\/p>\n In splinters of<\/p>\n morning, you pull me from<\/p>\n his open mouth while he sleeps,<\/p>\n piece me together from handfuls<\/p>\n of his running breath, the small<\/p>\n sound of whitewater.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The fact is I was made<\/p>\n from what Whitman called<\/p>\n \u201cfather-stuff,\u201d from a current<\/p>\n of you and from being held.<\/p>\n This\u2014the raw physiology of it\u2014<\/p>\n may explain why most fathers<\/p>\n think only of pushing their sons<\/p>\n into the world and most mothers<\/p>\n only of keeping them from it.<\/p>\n But the facts only tell us<\/p>\n half of every story, and never<\/p>\n the half we need. I have<\/p>\n a photograph taken just weeks<\/p>\n after I was born. I was<\/p>\n sleeping on your bare chest.<\/p>\n You were slouched in an armchair<\/p>\n with your fingers laced like rivulets<\/p>\n under my feet. These are facts\u2014<\/p>\n even if you forgot, and even if all<\/p>\n I remember from being with you<\/p>\n before Arizona is the smell of<\/p>\n shop grease and dipping tobacco,<\/p>\n you once held me the way<\/p>\n a riverbed wants to hold a river.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I begin with near-silence . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5449,"template":"","categories":[9,49,119],"tags":[1598,6,1599,1600,1601,206,1106,1602,881],"class_list":["post-5444","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-literary-features","category-poetry","tag-absent-fathers","tag-aquifer-the-florida-review-online","tag-arroyo-vista-park","tag-echolocation","tag-erik-wilbur","tag-family","tag-parents","tag-proof","tag-walt-whitman"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nProof<\/h3>\n