Fathers
Cameron Morse

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A hummingbird stays for a moment
among the zinnias. Then zips off
across the lawn. Soft air
brushes my eyelids, dry lips

whispering about departure, the desire to be
fathered, for my father to come back
and father me again. I imagine the coming
of my unborn son, his 144 beats per minute.

Clouds converge on the last day in July, cloistering
the light of this world,
as if there were any other.
Green tomatoes ripen on the prickly vine,

reddening behind the rusted chain
links of my childhood fence,
its footholds still bent from the ecstatic race of being
whatever I imagined.