Fatherlight

Your face was not a face

It was morning itself

The kind of morning
that arrives before grief

Before the knowledge
that fathers can die

I kept trying to look at you

But the light was too bright

As though love
after all these years
had finally become visible

And then you held me

The way fathers hold daughters
when there is nothing left to explain

No language

No questions

No unfinished sorrow

Only the certainty
of your arms around me

I woke hours ago

Yet something remains

The light has followed me
into this afternoon

It rests quietly
over everything

Over the silence

Over the ache

Over this ordinary day
unfolding exactly as days do

The room is ordinary

The world is ordinary

But I am not entirely here

Some part of me
is still standing
inside that light

Still breathing
the scent of starch
from your shirt

Still trying to look at you

Still closing my eyes
against that unbearable brightness

Still your daughter

And for the first time
in a very long time

the silence does not feel empty

It feels illuminated