Last night I dreamed my father
returned home from the hospital.
I heard his car roll up in the driveway and
I counted down the seconds until the front doors would open.
From the staircase where I would normally watch,
he finally walked in.
My father always saw himself as fit as a fiddle;
I grew up convinced that nothing could break him.
He strolled into the house easily,
and in the closet, in a corner long untouched
tennis rackets emerged.
“Come on, before the sun goes down,”
gesturing at me.
Like it was six years ago,
like the summer before I left for college,
like the way we used to play every weekend,
like walking down the same streets of Paris five years later,
older, but still romancing youth and unfinished passion,
because it was just like the old days I remember so fondly,
I hurried down the stairs
at least as best I could.
I awoke to the sounds of keys rattling.
Then a click and a creak.
Shades of grey and blue obscuring my vision,
I imagined yellow and purple instead
of a rising sun.
But it eventually dawned on me
that I was still in bed
in the dead of night.
My acuity improves,
a gush of wind then the mumbling,
I gather the courage and strength to get out of bed.
It’s not a dream anymore
it could not have been on this cold winter night,
sending shivers down my neck and spine
and outside snow turning into blizzard.
It’s the eyes I have long missed looking into,
without sparkle or glisten like a diamond veiled by dust,
still, I pocket the stone like any miner would
It must have taken him every effort to make it back home.