Diptych #2
By Jim Morgan
For my father on his birthday, 2022
You and mom gave me two pictures
of me. Of you. Summer in Worms.
One outside, upright, the German sky,
pale, late-sixties Kodachrome.
You, 6’4”, 240, in a dress shirt (of course),
collar undone, newborn me in one arm,
your hand as large as my body, my arms
clenched above the swaddle
and eyes closed. Your mouth is open--
about to speak? Or just shocked at what
has landed in your arms? The other: inside,
on a bed, with sixties green bedspread and
wooden headboard, your rugger’s head
emerging from a tight collar, skinny
military-issue tie. Lying down, unlike
your pose outside, but your fade is the same.
Your hands--both of them this time--
envelop me, and your face--still amazed:
what is this creature and
what is this attachment to him?
Now I am twice as old as you were then,
recognizing in you my younger self, a new father
agape at my own unpredictable boys, more than
recognizing that baby, who could be anyone,
who would be more than you bargained for, who
would become me because of your fierce
if occasionally befuddled love.
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