Janie's husband shot himself in the head last Sunday.
He was 46.
Just like my father, 46 when he bled out
In a hospital, his liver too damaged for the drugs that might have saved him.

She called him a beautiful mess.
And I wonder if that’s what my father was.
What part Daddy and what part monster was he?
How many drinks does it take to abandon all decency and forfeit all belonging?

He threatened her, them.
She put the small safe with the gun in the trunk of her car
And took those two little girls to the movies.
He found it anyway and ended his suffering while they ate popcorn.

And my father
Alienated from us, his rights terminated,
Exiled from what had been his life.
Why did it take him 12 long years to die?
Why does one man pull a trigger
And another take the shameful lonely path to an alcoholic death?

I have a photograph of my dead father
It's framed (though I don’t hang it)
Slid inconspicuously between some books
To be pulled out every few years.
But I can picture his face now
Senior year of high school
Handsome, eager, smart even pure.
And I grieve for him again.