Thirty years my father labored in a film factory.
There is no evidence he ever took a picture.
There is a family portrait taken by a neighbor I suppose.
My father is looking away from the camera,
his gaze focused somewhere the lens cannot see,
somewhere none of us can see.
He could be watching birds fly south,
or waiting for the ice to break.

It is ten years since the factory closed, my father gone seven.
As I look at the portrait now and try to follow his gaze,
I can see the river running around the locks,
under the stone arches of the bridge,
past the dark bones of factories,
out to a hungry sea.

I am rewriting this old poem once again, trying to get it right. It is my homage to a good man.