it’s father’s day and this is (was) my father. you might say he’s a son of a bitch and you might say we don’t talk anymore, but still i love these photos and i don’t hide them from myself, don’t hide his memory from myself, knowing as i do that the memory of him is not the same thing as him himself and besides i see him all the time, in the way i stand or the way i cock my head or the way i curse under my breath when i can’t get something to do what i’m trying to get it to do.
there are so many dads and the bad ones hurt you when they go and the good ones hurt you when they go and i’m not sure i even wish things were different. so i keep the photos around; i collect so many imperfect things, like this poem, which i place now on this digital shelf.
here is a beautiful thing someone made out of their own dad’s keepsakes.
and a souvenir, another pretty word for keepsakes.