He has to hurry to catch a plane.

PASSPORT PHOTO  BY ROY BENTLEY

34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 66

That was the summer I learned what loss is—

a father coming into the kitchen and squatting

to explain to a nine-year-old son he needs to leave. 

And saying he has to hurry to catch a plane. 

I reconstruct now the keepsake photograph:

black and white, signed. His passport photo. 

A square of flat-top haircut and man-face, 

which he handed off into my small palm. 

I didn’t know the nature of happiness 

is such you grab it and hold on. Through

this life and the next since light as passport

moment is always being placed in our hands.

I learned it with his leaving or maybe it came 

later when I looked and saw what he’d left me.