Had the cancer waited
last week
my father would have been
ninety-nine years old.
His shame is older;
it drank the last rain’s puddle,
burrowed into the dirt
& emerged in every
unkerneled ear of corn,
every scabbed potato.
You cannot find it
with a probing tongue
but it is there
laced to the sinews
of twitchy men & scared women
neither who sleep well
as hawks & owls & ravens
take turns watching the house.
The dead, too.