TOO LATE

That man his father?
What - that man?

You'd think there'd be
an innate sense of descent;
of something inherited;
of a relationship,
yet that man was
like a stranger often seen
passing by an open door;
familiar but not known.
So why did he call him "Dad"?
What part of him
did he owe that man?

They speak of love
between father and son,
but did he even like him?
Not that he was aware of;
that stranger passing
by the open door,
passing across his line of sight.
Getting in the way;
sometimes blocking out the light.

Then when his father was alone
and playing toss-the-coin with Death -
"heads you live and tails you die",
they spoke for the first time in their lives
of who he really was, and then
the man he called his "dad"
emerged from the shadows,
as a man to whom he did relate,
Yes, The passer-by just glimpsed before
became a human being, filled out
and three-dimensional;
a character who had left the page
who was real -
and was lovable.

Lovable?
That man?
No longer a stranger
passing by the open door,
getting in the way,
sometimes blocking out the light,
but a man he loved.
His father.

And when he called the hospital,
and they said that he was dead,
he cried.

Oh how he cried.

And he was blinded
by his tears.

That man my father?
What - that man?
I found, too late, the man I loved.
Too late the man my father.