chi. like in energy.

in the dining room
with the broken window
and a pink chair in the corner,
my father sits alone
at the head of the table,
his hands held together
in front of him,
and on each hand
he wears
two copper rings
that he made in the garage
with a fluorescent light
hanging over his head
and dead rats at his feet.

they are shaking,
his hands,
as he reaches for an orange
and i sit down to his left
as i do each night
that i am here.
i watch the way
he peels the fruit,
how he keeps it from falling
from his grasp,
like he is catching the final out of the world series
for his beloved yankees.

when he finishes,
he splits the naked orange
in two,
pushing one half
into his mouth
and chewing with stiff shoulders
between gasps for air.
i lift my spoon
and put it back down
and he asks me to get a candy bar
from the refrigerator
and i run over
and grab a hershey’s chocolate
and give it to him.
this needs peeling too.
i could have done that for him.
it wouldn’t have been a bother.
but i didn’t.
he breaks the chocolate into small fractions
and takes time with each piece.
he covers his eyes with his palms,
saying over and over,
“i thought i was going to die this time.”

he talks about work later
during dinner,
but i can’t listen when he is breaking–
the fragments of my father,
a meteor shower tearing
through our house.
i can’t listen.
the fragments of my father
are
in my mother’s eyes;
they glitter on the skin of her face,
drip from her lips when they move
without talking,
and
in her hair
as i look down on
top of her head,
standing under the pomegranate tree
in a red shirt with blue stripes,
my pants at my ankles,
as she sits by my feet
washing my soiled legs
with a wet towel.
and on me
nothing lands
and everything.

i go through the kitchen
of our empty house,
my own hands shaking in secret,
looking for things to put
into my mouth–
a piece of bread
left on top of the rice cooker–
and
this is how it begins
and
this is how it ends,
with a trembling in my bones,
my clueless hands
searching for more than words,
for more than her skin,
finding
an orange and a jar of peanut butter too
on a dirty counter.