Kath Abela Wilson

The Question

He always charmed us my younger brother in mid-life twenty years after our dad left the oldest boy of five children he had to carry the family for my mom he traveled cross-country to me at the end but on arrival in a moment of weakness he leaned heavily on my workshop chair his slight weight broke through the unfinished pine seat then AIDS was taking all our treasures his vivid dance his kindness he was gone soon after a photo of him silver framed with a thin strip of blue paper a note found on his desk it’s nobody’s fault it just happened this way Stephen today i hear your voice as we drove by Silver Lake you spoke your first sentence in the front with dad i a few years older a back seat listener

daddy
why do birds sit
on the water

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About the Author

Kath Abela Wilson is long-time writer and host of the Poets Salon on coloradoboulevard.net, the creator and leader of Poets on Site, and the secretary of the Tanka Society of America since 2013. She hosts online collaborative writing salons and meetings for poets three times a week, as well as meetings of poets with her husband, fluteplayer and Caltech mathematician Rick Wilson.