Strength

Oscar

Oscar was a fine, fine man

Though he marvelled

that he had stashed

All of earth

Within one box-

Oscar, you

Showed me inside to

Sylvia with a bump

stored in her stomach then

Laying her firstborn into a cage.

To your hustling onto a train,

Carrying that thick briefcase.

I saw your trudging with a walker,

Being blocked by its stiff arms.

Oscar, you

Taped it all up,

Wrapping it five times over,

Until it was suffocating-

Its cardboard edges,

bent and strained

Under the layers of your thick tape.

You scrawled on the word fragile,

Before tossing it across the room.

Oscar, you

Had a half-formed smile and

Patches on your head,

That you never seemed to tape up.

I hurled at your knees,

Shifting my head

to fit into your lap;

As you held my chubby arms,

You packed me into your embrace.

Oscar, you

Let me stay at your house,

At the peak of summer.

But I sneaked

into your room as you snored

like the sound of unrolling tape

Lined up against the flaps of your box.

And I teared the tape off –

Unveiling its bumpy stripes.

Oscar, you

Packed yourself

When my Nana took me to see you.

I covered your body in white flowers

Like a blanket of foam peanuts,

Before we buried your box.

I asked my Nana

which country you would go to-

France, Italy, or perhaps Venezuela?

Because surely,

You'll be back

To show me your funeral-

Captured in your immortal box.