Like he was alone inside himself
in the small town in rural Indiana
where he grew up,
his father an alcoholic
his mother doting, devoted
till she came down with Alzheimers.
He came east
got an education
a job,
not sure he wanted those things.
And I, in my forties,
stare at his face
and can hardly remember
him holding me
as we pushed to see the President
emerging from a church in Hyannisport
the warm sidewalk clotted with people
my father part of that joyous, heaving crowd.