Before My Shape

Another box of lives,

this one smelling of attics

and dry paper.

My father, maybe eighteen.

A stranger’s face.

Leaning on a fender,

something dented, something Ford.

The cigarette, a thin white line

between his lips, ash about to fall.

He hasn't learned the weight yet.

No lines around his eyes from

my own arrival,

no steady hand for my small head.

Just that careless lean,

that smoke curling,

before he was Dad.

A boy, already gone

before I could arrive.

A moment frozen,

perfectly unburdened,

and I, the future ache,

now holding it.