Sestina for My Father Eva Guillot

In moments of silence, it returns hard
as the pit of an unripe peach, this grief
of mine. Will the years ever work the magic, I wonder,
never expecting the answers to give me the freedom
from the sorrow and burning under a sun
that crisps when moments ago there was only time.

My daughter had just turned two, time
for parties, and French conversations, sucking hard
candies stolen from the jar, and sun-
baked days of picnics. There will be moments of grief-
stricken nights that forever deny my dreams the freedom
to plan and to hope what her grandfather never gets to wonder.

Will she grow up to be a child of wonder,
to discover imaginative worlds unfold over time
to plan her graduation with honors and welcome the freedom
of college? Losing a father is hard.
The memories of voice and smell intensify the grief
until I feel like there will never be a sun

bright enough to lift the cloudiness, a sun
filled with coolness, forever warm and wonder-
free. Does she know the same grief
I feel when the only thing she remembers is a time
of tickles and pistache. Life can never be as hard
for her when her memories possess a freedom

that mine will endure forever. Freedom
from the worries of pleasing a parent. The sun
may never burn away the work of hard
hands, the belly laugh that made us wonder
how a father of seven had enough time
to read the stories and hold back the grief

of losing two children and the grief
of caring for a wife with no memory— the lost freedom
lonely thoughts filled with time
for baths and time for the sun-
speckled walks, moments to wonder
if his life was all just too hard.

And perhaps his time to leave us wiped away his grief.
The bicycle hitting the hard pavement, losing his freedom
under a sun-soaked July morning of wonder.