A portrait of your father:
(It’s a memory from when you are very, very young)
It’s him — it’s your father. He’s standing behind a desk in his office but is facing away from you, talking on a landline with a spiral cord that tethers him down as he paces; he’s walking back and forth, back and forth, twirling it around his fingers as he talks in Polish, then English, then Polish again. He’s the smartest man you’ve ever met because the books he reads are thick. He takes lots of pictures of you when you’re little because you’re too young to tell him dad, that’s embarrassing, and you’re his best subject, and his favorite, and you think he has the coolest job in the world, his dad and his mom. They always come home at night and they always tell him they love him. His dad doesn't drink. He takes two white-pink capsules a day with food. They come from an orange bottle with a white top that he keeps in his work bag and the prescription is written in both Polish and English; you know because you take it out and read it aloud to him to impress him, but you aren’t allowed to open it or touch the things inside, not that you could get it open anyway. Dad is amazing. Dad swears sometimes but makes you promise not to tell mom. Dad likes reading and writing and reads to you every night. Dad takes you to see the butterflies that call you things like “PROGENY” and “CHILD” with their wings even though you’ve told them your name before. Dad. Dad. Dad. Everything is Dad, and everything is fine, and the desk he stands behind when you are five is the same desk he’ll die behind when you are twenty-five.
Dad talks on the phone and takes his medicine.
