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Sport 41: 2013

[Untitled]

page 15

My father works in a study at the front of the house, where he can see
only a portion of street, through the driveway’s
mouth. I watch him dab his eye

with a tissue, the drooping eyelid no longer
able to adequately spread
and contain its fluid.

Last year, he fell against the stone
steps of his sister’s house in Singapore, damaging the
nerves and muscles on one side

of his face. Some cultures consider crying to be
undignified. The Mäori tangi involves the cultivation of intense
wetness around the eyes

and nose. In this expression of mourning, the wetness of living bodies
is invoked. Wet touch is closer and faster than dry touch. Sound travels
more quickly in water, as does electricity.

The air between me and my father is hung
with tiny water droplets.
It is true, then, that we are always touching what we can

sometimes never possess.