Left Blank

The poem had begun. The bond between

a father and his son... was all that I

could write before, again, I drew that blank:

that nothingness that clouds my thoughts,

that stills my pen. Deep breath. Let’s start. Again.

That bond between a father and his son...

But no. That big black line, where ‘Father’s Name’

should be – that thick black line which speaks to me

of emptiness, of space between, of loss,

of gaps that can’t and won’t be bridged, of words

I know do not exist – that line was drawn

through all the words I could not write; crossed out

before I’d even written them. Instead,

I added two lines of my own to fill

that space, left blank, where father’s name should be:

Two people looking at the stars at night,

as far apart as two points in the sky.

Two uncrossed lines, now written down, I looked

at them and knew at last the thing was done:

the bond between that father and this son.