Memories tangle
weave together
like infinity signs
before and after
Gordon Lightfoot singing
“feel like I’m winning when I’m losing again”
and you’re there momentarily
before you disappear again
like a ghost
me playing softball
a dead dad
you quoting psalms
walking through the valley
(which you’re more apt to do now)
calling me when you’re drunk
sad and hopeful and needy
and I liked you better then:
(sad to say)
vulnerable, kind, sweet
than now when you punch out lucidly
at me because my politics are not your own
and erase me rather than accept me
but maybe you’ve always been erasing
the farther away you’ve grown, gone
a phantom in my life
a name, a face, brother,
ghost, gone.