Melissa Cundieff

Only one person knew
the second timeI had an abortion;
over the phone, we tradedcalm through long-distance
shapelessness, our flattenedforms. Years later,
he and I talk about rivers  we want to visit. Again,
each other’s bodies only  near in recollection. He reads
different names into my ear:Missouri. Platte. I offer
back: Rogue.Oxbow.

Photograph by Stephen DiRadoSitting on the porch of the house  
the father doesn’t remember is his own,
the daughter confides to the father
that her love for him has become
a trapped animal. The father, almost deaf,
doesn’t hear the daughter. In the daughter’s
humid periphery, the father becomes
a younger version of himself.