My Eyes in your Head

A Premonition

Falling into sleep, he steps fully formed into my head and freezes like a stopped frame — one arm up, the other holding a jacket hooked over a shoulder.

My eyes.

He steps in and looks with my eyes, smiling in my head, stopped — and I know he is dead, my dad.

Just walking in like that after years of silence.

Ever the actor, he has to have an audience for the last curtain…there he is — paused — in a pink striped shirt with his jacket slung, mouth open, calling.

Falling, the earth globe crumples like Piglet’s balloon and I am the moon—marooned…

My blue eyes. His goatee — our hair — (yeah — thanks for that!)

No matter — he came to say goodbye.

We faced off, eye to eye for the time it takes to watch a life reel by — my head the stage from which he chose to exit left.

Is this a father I see before me, compassion toward my hand?

Come — let me touch thee…What? Dost thou, not speak?

Mouth calling, falling through time. Bowing back through a Proscenium Arch before I had a chance to write that letter? Go then — thou art banished.

I was there when you strutted, big belly bulging in a green body stocking, swinging your handbag and living the Midsummer dream, Oberon.

I watched the trail of brown sweat stain your impeccable collar as you drove to the theatre in the ‘76 summer, never thinking that the heat would reveal the deception.

As if anyone can cover a bald spot with boot polish!

I was the daughter you dangled off banisters, forced through aviaries — rowed too close to the rocks. I am the one you disowned, begged back, borrowed and stole from. I, the oldest of your girls, am the glue that tried to stick you to your estranged family — even as you were bragging about the other…

My eyes.

My need for an audience.

Years since we have spoken — and yet…

(Curtain falls, slowly)

FIN