Retirement
When he becomes a monk, he says I will no longer be his daughter.
To one another, we would be people. Strangers.
But what if I have children? They will not be your grandchildren?
He pauses, considering, then grips the wheel and keeps driving.
I don’t visit him enough and when I do, I never cook for him.
Imagine his monkhood. I would have to give him more respect
as a stranger. His head shaved every three weeks.
No one is allowed to touch a monk’s head. But I am the only one
who massages my father’s temples before he goes to bed.
If I am no longer his daughter, what will I offer him then?
Copyright © 2022 by Monica Sok. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 22, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.
“We all have private languages to provoke our loved ones. Once, my father made the hollow threat of estrangement with the possibility of pursuing a monastic life during his retirement. For thirty years, he had worked as a welder making parts for agricultural machinery. While adjusting to this significant life change, he was being hard on me for not being a more traditional daughter. In the silence that followed, we both feared the loss of intimacy with one another. Years later, my father is happily retired, and I am still his daughter.”
—Monica Sok
Monica Sok
Monica Sok is the author of the chapbook Year Zero (Poetry Society of America, 2016), selected by Marilyn Chin as the winner of he 2015 Poetry Society of American Chapbook Fellowship, and the forthcoming A Nail the Evening Hangs On (Copper Canyon Press, 2020). Sok is the recipient of a 2018 Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize, as well as fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Kundiman, Montalvo Arts Center, and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others.