my father’s heart

I find three watches in my dead father’s room. 
Three watches in my father’s room: dead.
My father’s dead watches; there are three.
In my father’s dead room I find three watches. 
Dead room, three watches, I find my father.
I find my father, dead. Three watches.
Three rooms (I find) in my dead father’s watches. 
Find my watches, father. Three dead rooms.

I (am the oldest son) 
find (that I cannot stand)
three (sons my father had)
watches (analog; black strap, brown strap, no strap) 
in (as in “frozen in time”)
my (nonexclusive possessive)
dead (formerly living, recently expired) 
father’s (possessive: this was his, I was his son)
room (his chamber, as in, the chamber of a heart).

When there is a quiet moment, I 
slip upstairs. As a child I would find
old photos of my grandparents and their three, 
then four children. Now a portrait watches
as I move through the hallway in
silence, treading the wood and carpet with my 
bare feet, the wooden door ajar, dead
ahead. I am standing where my father’s 
body came to rest, just outside his room.

Read more from Issue 19.1.