It wasn’t the time he taught me to ride
without training wheels. Wasn’t fishing
on the lake for crappies or hunting
in the Wisconsin woods for squirrels.
Wasn’t the cassette tapes he made me
when I moved away from home or the rare tears
he cried when I left. It wasn’t the way
he forgave me when I forgot to call
on his fiftieth birthday. Wasn’t the white
sweater he bought me the year before he died
because he said I looked so beautiful in it.
Or maybe it was all those things—everything
he did, everything he was, every quiet touch and
unsung sacrifice ,so I never once doubted his love.
His love as solid as he was. His love stained me.
Can never be removed, no matter how fiercely
the world tries to scrub me of hope.
Every day I take in the violent raids,
the infinite ways we defile and dismiss
and destroy each other. And still I can’t unknow
his love, can’t untrust we are capable
of such goodness, such unflinching generosity.
His love, the talisman I wear in every cell.
It protects me not from the horror, but
from the error of believing the horror is all.
There is also how he hummed to me
when I was scared. How he cheered for me,
even when I failed. How in my most vulnerable
hours, he held me and whispered my name.
Posts Tagged ‘dad’
The Talisman
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, grief, love, protection on December 2, 2025| 7 Comments »
Going Fishing with Dad Four Years After His Death
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, dad, fishing, grief on November 19, 2025| 5 Comments »
Dear Dad,
Yesterday I met a man who went fishing.
It was sleety, bracing, gray.
He went fishing anyway. Actually,
as you would say, he went “catching.”
Just one fish, he said, but I felt his gladness,
the modest kind that does not
depend on good weather, the gladness
we feel when we follow the pull
of what we love. Like how I find pleasure
in writing, even when the conditions
are heartache and loss. Even then,
there’s pleasure in standing in the river
of the moment, my whole body attuned,
waiting for the tug. It made me feel close to you dad,
the way his face lit up, just as yours used to
when the talk turned to what was biting.
And now writing to you about my day,
it’s like I’ve cast a line to you. The rain
in here tastes like salt, but oh the gladness
when I feel it on your end, the tug.
Only When I Am Not Rushing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, dream, slow, writing on November 10, 2025| 8 Comments »
In the middle of a Monday morning
I let my hands rest in my lap
and truly feel them rest, feel
them empty and open, these
hands that scrub and type
and wash and chop and rub
and dig and yank and knit,
these hands that twist off
and turn on and lift up and
wring out, I let them rest,
and because they have slowed,
a dream from last night lands
in my upturned palms, a dream
in which my father arrives
wanting to write a beautiful letter,
so I find for him thick creamy
paper and an elegant black
pen with dark black ink and
I clear for him a wide cherry desk,
wipe clean the dust and oh,
how wide his smile then.
It is only in the honey-slow
moments I am able to receive
these sweet tendrils from the dead—
only when I defy the momentum
of the human-made rush and
enter into the pace of the real
that I feel the gifts of their presence.
As now, midmorning, my hands
still as fallen leaves in the grass,
fall open to receive my father,
his thick hands poised above the page,
his laughter ringing through the dream
and into this golden, sun-flooded room.
How He Loved to Fish
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, father, fishing, love, memory on November 5, 2025| 4 Comments »
Dad could barely walk,
but put a rod in his hand
and pass him a bag full
of tackle and bait
and that man could traverse
over mountains or swamps
to get to the place
where the bite was on.
I remember him reeking
of fish, his thick hands
covered in slime,
his smile wide as a river
is long. He was chatty,
then, giggling each time
he’d feel the sharp tug
on the line, whistling out
a long ooooooh-eeee as he
reeled and pulled.
How he thrilled in every
part of the act—
the planning, the waiting,
the catching, the gutting, the eating.
Years later, I can almost
scent it here on my hand—
the pungent, sour smell
brings me back to when Dad
was most alive,
not those hours in the ER,
not those years in the chair
swaying back and forth
to dance with his pain, no,
a straight path to those days when
his eyes were bright with ecstasy
and the current of his joy so strong
it still carries me, even now.
Inner Girl
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, identity, nickname on July 6, 2025| 9 Comments »
I don’t know why he started calling me Roxanne,
but sometime in high school that’s what Dad did.
No matter it wasn’t my name. I loved how it made
me feel—something just ours. Dad had a way
of doing that—making a person feel seen, feel
uniquely known to him. And so today,
on his birthday, I imagined Dad could see me
through the veils of death. I talked to him as usual
as I weeded the garden bed. Told him about
the four river otter that showed up in the pond today,
how they slid their dark slick bodies across the top
of the water and dined on crawdads for hours.
As always, Dad didn’t talk back. Then, tonight,
at a party, when a woman introduced herself
as Roxanne, I stared at her, stunned, then unraveled
into tears. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know it’s strange
to have a person start to weep when you tell
them your name.” She was kind to me all
the same. Just hearing someone say the word
I understood how much I miss hearing him
say it, miss the person I am with him.
It’s as if a door has been locked for years—
the door through which I am Roxanne.
Someone silly. Treasured. Supported. Known.
Hearing the name again felt like a key,
a gift on his birthday. It didn’t bring him back,
but it revived a forgotten part of me.
Even now, she is writing this poem.
One Gift from My Dad
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, Father's Day on June 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »
every time I giggle
though no one else can hear it
inside my laughter, your laughter
PLUS
Three Father’s Day Poems in Telluride Inside & Out
you can read them here.
Wishing a Happy Father’s Day to all the dads❤️❤️❤️
And in This Way, He Still Lives
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, dad, kindness, legacy on October 30, 2024| 21 Comments »
for my dad
There was that time that he bought
a television for the woman who came
to the house to clean while he and mom were sick.
She had mentioned offhand hers had broken.
He was like that. Would take smoked salmon
for the men and women at the firehouse.
Would make certificates for people
to honor kind things they had done.
It was as if he could read the small thought bubbles
that appear above people’s heads,
the ones we read in cartoons
but can’t see in real life,
the ones that say what they really need,
and then he’d offer a kindness.
Not that he was a saint.
My god, could he get angry.
Not that he looked for people to care for,
more that he really looked at the people
who came across his path.
This is how I want him to live on in me,
his hands guiding mine to give.
Balancing Act
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, family, father, memory, support on October 29, 2023| 6 Comments »
When I was a girl, my father
would lie on his back, palms up.
I’d step barefoot into his hands
and slowly, slowly, he’d lift me.
I’d balance above him, floating
like an angel, like a circus star,
like a little girl who trusts her dad
to support her. Fifty years later,
I still feel his hands on my soles—
even this moment, I could rise.
One for Father’s Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, father's day, laughter on June 18, 2023| 2 Comments »
inside my laughter
stencil of my father’s laughter—
an audible tattoo
Family Recipe
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, recipe, san francisco, secret, thanksgiving on November 25, 2022| 7 Comments »
All day, I search for it,
the secret ingredient—
something my father
believed in. He always
made stuffing
with something extra,
something special,
then made us guess
what the secret was.
All day, I notice
what goes into a day—
a total of 86,400 seconds,
and in every second
a choice of how
we will meet that second.
If the day is stuffing,
then this day has
some unusual ingredients:
a couple dozen folks
in swimsuits on the sidewalk,
one woman with a dying parrot
she has tucked in her sweater,
a whole garden full of lemon trees,
one ripe hour alone
in the sunshine on a rooftop,
a generous measure of laughter
as my daughter and husband and I
climb a near-vertical hill,
and bittersweet tears
as I think of Dad
and his love of secret ingredients.
All day, the world
shows off its flavors.
All day, I revel in the recipe,
this extraordinary day,
something that can never
be made the same way again.