Double Agent

by Gordon Taylor

Each day after solstice, afternoon light increases
by a minute. He explains the year’s shortest day
is the same length as the others. We want a reason
for our sadness. We should just admire night instead,
he insists, in his home of barometers and chairs,
the neck of every reading lamp broken and swinging,
dust on a herd of small, jade elephants facing a window.
Twenty years ago, I hid in my late teenaged bedroom,
waited for his snoring from across the hall before
sneaking out to meet other boys in the buzz of streetlamps.
He still granted a weekly allowance and told me what
to buy. Chocolate. Something sweet and worthy.

My mother confesses he stood on a bridge in his fifties
and considered jumping but stopped himself. I knew
he hid hunting rifles under the stairs, but I was too shy
to search for weapons. He says a cot is unfolded
in the guest room so my husband will have a place
to sleep too. In a leather navy recliner, I listen to a tale
of his first date with my mother, movie theatre
deep kiss interrupted by an usher’s flashlight, lines
of empty seats underlined by aisles. I sit next
to his fireplace, in the twilight in between, watching
helpless wood pocked by thousands of tiny red bites,
a green chenille throw, moss over my knees.