by Michael Shiaw-Tian Liaw

A FATHERLESS SON #1
….. after Sylvia Plath’s For a Fatherless Son

One day, I touched what was wrong, an absence,
a trout in a frozen writhe, stiff hours
after my brother caught it. The eyes were still
lucent and mouth agape, hiding jagged teeth
no less sharp dead. The illusion
is that dead, its life simply ceased, no upstream
mating within murky waters. No: its skin’s
sheen, its blood-
red gills, its slither from my hands into the sink.
I almost left it.

A FATHERLESS SON #2
….. after Sylvia Plath’s For a Fatherless Son

And I touch what is wrong, a silence,
thousands of miles that the phone reduces to two-second
delays, an uncle’s instruction to speak, the “father”
I’ve not mouthed in years. One four a.m. morning,
my block lost power, the fridge quieted to a box
and electric cables to ropes. The streets,
comatose, thickened with ears as I stepped out, incriminated
by the back patio door creaking. I say, “father,”

what he hears in the dark before heaven breaks.

A FATHERLESS SON #3
….. after Sylvia Plath’s For a Fatherless Son

Then, I touch what is wrong, a hunger,
a cockroach she kills in her kitchen, a text
about that and how she loves me. She wants me
a man, not the scavenger’s lean
fingers or the heart that thrives on thrift. But hunger for
hunger and work for work grow
autophagous, how my father

fissioned for family’s sake and could not be stayed. Any more
than he could survive on—New Year’s at home,
shooting stars, road trips, humid and fan—
immune afternoons of no importance— he missed as apparent

water.

A FATHERLESS SON #4
….. after Sylvia Plath’s For a Fatherless Son

In the beginning, I touched
……….. what was wrong, a puncture,

a hernia, five months of nights’
……….. bewildered eyes, yours, of a new

father, who to your son’s entreaties
……….. was already porous, your palm little

aid to the falling gut and who left mornings
……….. to work publishing into Chinese the texts in

Japanese, which your father had to learn
……….. during the war, he who survived

to open a local medical dispensary
……….. practicing unlicensed on his neighbours’

common flus, unfazed by the boys’ river-rock—
……….. gashed knees, wishing a doctor of

you, who studied hard three failed
……….. attempts, whose son’s cries

needed no translation—all but
……….. so what else?—who even after

I was stitched up and quiet
……….. could not see stars

but as perforations and leaks,

……….. as any man helpless and leave-taking.