Soul of a Daughter, Life of a Stranger

Yesterday when I stood before him, he spoke my name Today, I still stand, but the floorboards are cold and he no longer knows the color of my eyes. With each spoonful of the steaming grey I lift my arms, Up, then down, again and again, a repeated motion – weeping, My arms are trembling with the weight of the spoon that holds in its cupped womb my raw, injured soul. Father, I say, in a voice cold from straining not to break I prod away the soup dribbling down his chin, gently. The wrinkled hands are limp at his sides, lost. What should be mad and free is caged within me; fluttering feebly, thumping about in a circle of broken pieces The look in his blank eyes has labeled me a stranger But when they are closed my name is written on his face.