age of physics
the quantum bits
zap in and out
where? where? where?
my father comes and goes
and comes is it some
other chair in some
other nursing home that
holds the man I knew
when he disappears from
here and reappears is
the food better there?
can he still play cribbage
and laugh and recognize
some alternative son in
that place to which he
flickers right before my
eyes? Is he a wave there
still afroth with possibilities
so different from the particles
of himself that seem to drop
like pieces of personhood dried
and falling like last year’s snow?
.
Wayne-Daniel Berard, PhD, teaches Humanities at Nichols College, Dudley, MA. He publishes broadly in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. His novella, Everything We Want, was published in 2018 by Bloodstone Press. A poetry collection, The Realm of Blessing, will be published in 2020 by Unsolicited Press.