October. Here in this boisterous restaurant table
with family, I sit and stare at my father’s timeworn
and wrinkled face. Blood-flecked eyes,
he holds in his gaze a forlorn expression,
in his body the weight of years accumulated.
In ill-fitted pants and rumpled shirt, he leans
against the restaurant table and cries.
He’s traumatized by the hurricane he’d just experienced,
relieved that now there’s something to eat.
I’ve never seen my father like this.
But the ordeal is over, for now, thank God
we have him home again with family. Papi, we love you,
we’re so happy you’re home with us, we who can’t even phantom
the fury of a hurricane, and don’t even know the experience of
a violent and raucous visit of death.