What We Deserved
       for my father

by Thea Sullivan



How I loved to walk holding your big arm
safe in the nighttime city, your steps timed to mine,
or in harbors dotted with lights
and halyards ringing across the water.
And the dinners out, with candles casting shadows
over thick ivory tablecloths and the rich
slippery red of a napkin in my hands.
With a nod from you, a waiter appeared
with a bright Shirley Temple; later, a glass of wine.
You could make things out of air like that--
winking, you'd reach in your pocket
and crisp bills would spring
from your hands like magic flowers.

You played your part gracefully;
searching the menu behind half-glasses
for what might please you.  The dim light
tracing the raised words: all the tender parts
of animals, the succulent hearts
of plants to be splayed across plates before us,
all that we deserved. I basked in it,
running my fingers up a cool glass stem,
smoothing my dress, the softness of air
on the back of my neck. All the luxuries
of your affection. I was falling, as always,
into a feathery sea:  soft, soft, into the warm
airless center of your heart.