From Where Nothing
Apryl Miller
My father will be cold when next I touch his skin
His fingers, long and fatless, arranged by a stranger
His eyes and lips, artificially closed and sealed
His legs, as he left them, stretched straight in front
His hair, eternally swept back
His right arm folded across his chest
The feet splayed out, not pigeon toed
His left arm by his side
His ankles and toe tips will be turning black
His hands, I’ll have to wait and see
His face looking like a movie skeleton
There will be so little fat left and the flesh shrinking in
His ears scrumbled to an unnatural shape and
Pinned there by the cold
His nose appearing more beak then human
His body rigid as the board on which he’s placed
His private areas swaddled with that final diaper
Dad
Oh Dad
Oh my dad
I will be I should be I should have been
Pried from your corpse
What I don’t know can fill many buckets
What I don’t know can fill many coffins
Many coffins can be filled with what I don’t know
Many coffins can be filled with my zero knowledge
There is so much I don’t know
Fill a coffin with my empty
Fill a coffin with my
My nothing will fill a coffin
December 1999
Poet, artist, designer, philosopher, Apryl Miller is online at AprylMiller.com. Read her in E·ratio 20. And read The Apryl Miller Interview in E·ratio 19.
