Bodega Bay, CA

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When the floods came my father refused

to sacrifice much. He took

the silverware, the coats, the pictures

of my mother surrounded by hunting dogs

long since dead. He gathered everything

he could. In between each netted armful he sang:

We are a people who spend their lives

holding onto things. He kept repeating

this to me as he fell from one fishing boat to another,

and under each boat a whirlpool,

and in each whirlpool the old man continued

to lose pieces. Now he is all but gone.

Today I admit I want to hear him calling

at the door one last time, but there is no house

to speak of. There could have been peace between us