I photograph
my father's death
develop the film
but the negatives
won't print.

Somewhere
the images
remain:
the floral clock
sent to celebrate
the
seven o five
Brooklyn time

the curve
of Belt Parkway
the sun dancing
on the surface
of the Narrows
Narrows to the sea
the sea he crossed
on the Roma eating
only bread and
grapes from a box
his mother gave him;

the light behind him
ten years before
double-exposing the image
fifteen years before
through the windshield
grayer, heavier
trotting more slowly
the bunch of string
jiggling at his belt;

the laundry ticket
Route 27
The American Way Laundry
he asks me to mark
TTF
Turkish Towels Fluffed;

those horribly erratic
lines on the monitor
the burned flesh
the bruises over
the ribs broken by
the poundings
that prolong
existence;

the way he pushes
his food away
will not touch
what is not
sacerdotally acceptable;

the rages
in language
that dishonors Italians
says the Italian doctor
between vague metaphors
and stale statistics;

the night he leaps
out of bed and
tears out all
the tubes the wires
and sprawls by
the iron bed;p> the regrets
if only I had
learned to read
the anger
at the sisters
who care only
for money
for property
for titles and
rights of access;

the last kiss
on the cheek
when it looks
like he'll make it
when the black
clock radio I
bought seemed no
longer an omen
of that last futile
pounding and the ride
across the Narrows
and up Todt Hill.