Lyrics

To My Father

I’m ashamed to say I haven’t pondered you much
in all these years. You are, I realize, too painful to think about.

With the way you tore yourself from us and how I hated you for it,
not talking to you, not being the son you wanted, shutting you out.

Why do I feel nothing when I look at you standing beside my mother
somewhere in San Jose in the only picture of you both I have left?

You look so slim and tall, I look nothing like you. My brother
got your good looks, your height, your build.

I look more like my mother, short and stocky.
I only have a few memories of you, odd ones, from my childhood:

Hugging you late at night when I had fallen asleep in the car.
You were carrying me to my room. I can still smell your manly smell,

feel your whiskers against my face, the natural way I nestled against you.
We had a conversation one day, I don’t remember what it was about.

I think we were arguing about politics. Me, a sixties hippy;
You, a failed father awkwardly trying to talk to his son.

It was in the garage after a game of basketball. My friends and I
had hung a hoop there so we could play on rainy days.

I remember sitting on the washing machine talking to you,
the only time I recall us ever communicating as equals.

Also, I remember the time, after the divorce, when we went camping.
I was driving the car, towing a trailer. We were going the wrong way

and we had to make a U-turn. I pulled into the muddy turn out
and you said, “Take it easy. You might get stuck”

I ignored you, thinking the ground firm enough. But instead of arguing
you let me give it just enough gas to get the wheels stuck in the mud.

I remember waiting for hours for a tow truck,
too proud to admit I’d been wrong.