Pandora's Box

You are my Pandora’s Box.

In my mind I am five again, sitting beside you

and wondering at your face.  I know nothing

of the man that you are, only that you are my father

and that I am happy to be near you.

I am forty and my mother tells me how

every day would start in a bottle.

My five and forty selves can’t imagine this

is you.  My five and forty selves want something more

from this icon you have become. This image

of a man in his prime, strong and undeniable, defined

by planes and angles, the shape of your face

imprinted on mine.

I am five and you are holding my hand within your own.

I am forty and you are gone, your hands mirrored

in mine.

You are the box I should not open, but can not help myself

from visiting time and time again.  I lift the lid once,

twice, three times - ritualistically.  I learn

how you were beaten as a child. How your own intellect

held you prisoner.  How the pressure for perfection

held you in its grip and demanded more than you

could give.  How by the time you were my father

you were already broken, like the fragile wings

of all the things that flew out of that box

so long ago.  And like Pandora, I shake that box

only to find myself at the bottom, the shred of hope

you held pressed to your heart. 

-revised LAP 05/29/26-