Papa (Father's day 2026)

 Burgundy in Paris

                                     

You taught me how to cut

it                                first the skin        silk paper that was

(but not long enough to roll a cigarette with)

a game of chess with the knife                deep

in squares           then across                 mind your thumb

with the blade                               garlic and blood don’t

mix well in a salad – good for

cuts though.                Later in life

you got lazy, cut it in

half with or without skin

and ate it

with or without salad.   I’d always

know when you’d been up

and down the staircase at the

pharmacy in the café where it’d

check mate calvados and espresso at

the boulangerie all bread became

garlic bread even brioche I

would walk in garlic dance in garlic speak in garlic

Burgundy in Paris 

and the staircase would still sing its garlic 

three days after you died.