Disappearing Act

Four score and seven Big Red wrappers past,
when Cracker Jack and I were pinkly knickered youth,
my author father fell and broke his crutch
and preachers rallied his among the books to burn
fired up on righteousness, served sizzling
to earnest flightless flocks afraid of blazes.

The cloak of average; nameless visage, mine
worn shrugged and hunched in rote routine
denied my dad in trade for bus stop conversations
of grandchildren, golf, garden accomplishments
wrapped up in roped and tightly tidy bundles;
time-released sighs of giving in, of unbecoming...

Now I rattle over roadways, brittle, bared,
human: only bones to cage my wobbly heart
my ill-fed organs operating lazily and slow
a brain that mattered, maybe, some long time ago
encased inside the parchment paper skin
of the never-will and never-even-ever-has-been.