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JOHN GALLAHER THE PRACTICE When I asked my father, while he was dying, what he thought about, he said he spent a lot of time dreaming. He looked at me like maybe he was dreaming as he said it, which is pretty much how I felt as well. He also told me I needed a shave. It’s how he’d say “Thank you for coming.” I think. Or how I decided to think. I replied, “Hey, look who’s talking.” It’s how I said “I’m glad to be here.” I think. Or how I decided to think. Driving to TX after news my father has died, I see a billboard with the word FURNITURE and I think is says FUNERAL. Mood is everything. Blank sky, calm sky, crying sky. Gotcha. It’s a kind of luggage you carry or boat you step into. And before that, a field and before that steamy vegetation, a lava bed, now the Flint Hills, a single tree in an open field, and everything that was obvious is not so obvious. * So I say “chance of rain.” It’s like when someone says “truth” or “making things up.” Sure, I get it, you opened this door or you didn’t, but all this other stuff? What time means? My heart? The way wind can sound like the ocean, like a living creature, and you can be lost in a memory and remain there the rest of your life? Every now and then, someone gives me a look and I’m certain they can read my mind or maybe my soul or at any rate right into me, some essential me that I’d rather keep to myself. Sometimes it’s a child or a dog who’s looking. Or maybe that’s what they see: child me or dog me, circling the mailbox. I feel I’m supposed to apologize or something, or ground all flights and take up wandering the desert. This isn’t where I meant to end up. My father was dreaming is all. And I stood there a long time like that. |