Poem-a-Day

In any case, by the time I realized I hadn’t spoken to my father 
           for many, many years, I was distracted. It was snowing

and I was stuck on page 157 of a biography of Casanova 
           who may have slept with multitudes, but lost 

a fortune investing in a silk factory. I dreamed 
           about that story. I maintained my silence

in my cold room there, in Iowa, where industries 
           disappear the fingers and feet of its workers, a cohort

among which my dad might have been counted 
           had his travels led him farther north. Is there hazard pay

in the feeding of America? I have traveled so far from God,  
           my dad might have quoted if he kept diaries.

But who was I kidding? It was not the season of fathers.  
           It was the season of asylum. My uncle told me so. 

While I sat there, in the gauzy twilight of snowy Iowa,  
           he traveled to the edge of Arizona

where he walked himself, hands in pockets, to border patrol. 
           When I was a child, he was also a child. 

He held me down, poured wax on my neck  
           from hot devotional candles. I read in my room 

when Juan Diego bailed on his meeting with the ghost 
           of Mary, she chided him for worrying

about his terminal uncle. Am I not here, she asked, 
           I, who is your sanctuary? I dreamed about that story 

when the snow first began falling in Iowa. I was warmed  
           by the wax that tore like an arrow through my skin.