My Utmost Wish

My father told me he spoke to ghosts as easily as people.

Coming from him, this did not seem crazy.

He mentioned  a conversation he’d had that morning with his grandfather, retold the joke he had heard.

The fact that his grandfather dropped dead on the golf course on an April day in 1927 was of no consequence.

The joke was a good one.

Timeless, like its teller.

Now he too is gone, my father, gone to join the ghosts to which he spoke so easily.

I did not inherit his full facility with ghosts, only a touch of it.

I can feel my father and know he is there, but he is mute.

It is as though we swim together in the sea, masks and snorkels and fins.

I can neither speak nor hear as I float through this world, its currents wafting hot and cold, up and down, the only sound my own stertorous breathing and the rush of blood in my ears.

I see him there, my father, floating in eddies of his own.

Behind the plate glass of his mask I can see his lips moving.

To hear his voice is my utmost wish.