My father would measure time by
     the number of drinks he had left
     to finish, counting glasses, back
     when he was alive, but living
     in the province of life where his
     would be punched out of him like a
     belligerence of Morse, a code
     of seven holes, only four of
     which would be necessary to
     empty his body of its weak
     spirit, perhaps the shooter was
     shooting through the many spirits
     with which my father had filled him-
     self, killing time before not the
     drinks but pettiness killed him off
     but what an orphan thinks about

puts as much of him back toget-
     her again as all the Queen’s men
     could, in a plea-bargain dropping
     Murder One for a restricted
     firearms conviction—God bless them!
     as incompetent as they were
     empathetic, reciting how
     sorry they were how it ended—
     every time someone calls me
     his name, my heart shatters and I
     almost explode, since mine’s not the
     same—a lonely concert of two
     pianos burning under the
     weight of fishbowls in which fistfuls
     of dollars turn to dust, ashes
     a legacy I must accept.