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Text: Poem by Susan Spaeth Cherry
Father delivers his message
like a mailman approaching a Doberman,
tiptoeing through words exhumed
from tombs of manliness by cancer’s chisel.
“I cherish you,” wobbles Father
like a toddler letting go for the first time.
I lunge to catch his three-legged tenderness,
but I am out of practice,
and it shatters on the muzzle of our past.
1999, from Hole to Whole, Chicago Spectrum Press.
Reprinted with permission
