This poem, my 17th villanelle, reflects on the conditions and spiritual aftermath of my father’s suicide. I wasn’t there. My parents separated and divorced by the time I was born, and though I lived variously with both of them, at ten years old, when my father ended his life, I was living with my mother 260 miles away.
Sometimes, as the years went on, I’d try to imagine the circumstances of his death—What he felt, saw, heard, and pondered. What crushed him? Was it truly just his alcoholism? Who knows. But it did end in the dark of the Monterey County Jail drunk tank, an old building used for the purpose since the days of the old west.
In adulthood I’ve visited the jail, just to see it. And I could swear I sensed his presence there, all unheeding—Lost in the abysmal trap of its own self-pity and sorrow.
In the Shade of Suicide
steel bars seal the concrete cell
dim lighting casts a haze on everything
suffocating hope until the pulse is still
here unheard there sobs a secret weeping soul
the air is weighed beyond all comforting
steel bars seal the concrete cell
some can sense a lost control
regrets cascade and crush in heavy throng
suffocating hope until the pulse is still
year by passing year brief glances rise and fall
a faded figure sometimes seen to hang
steel bars seal the concrete cell
wrenched within their drunken pall
detainees wake to hear a gasping lung
suffocating hope until the pulse is still
violence born of sorrow echoes through the hall
the final act of him who kicked and swung
steel bars seal the concrete cell
suffocating hope until the pulse is still
Publication History:
The Awakenings Review — Summer 2007
