for Gloria Celeste Rosa Henriquez, 1939–1979


My dad says it slowly,
as though the memory
is arriving word by word
in the stale autumn wind.
He looks towards the radio tower,
prodding the sky
like an impatient child.
“She used to bring me here,” he says,
eyes on the tower.
“She used to bring me here
with her when she would read.
She would read her poems
on the radio.” He says this
as though it’s being revealed to him.
As though he’s learning this
for the first time. As though
he could have forgotten.
As though just realizing
this might have affected him.
Oh, how I remember my dad
at his typewriter, then his word processor,
then his computer. How I remember
the books lining the walls, the photo
of his mother on the shelf. I ask
if he still has her poems and he says
no, that they were lost when his sisters
cleared out the house after she died.
After he moved to the US. His eyes
still on the tower. I want to tell him
that radio waves never disappear,
never truly dissipate, not really.
I want to tell him that they grow
infinitely smaller, infinitely more
spread out, infinitely infinite,
but still there. Forever.
I want to tell him I am listening.