Somewhere
in Brooklyn in the Devil’s Hour, perhaps,
I dreamed of Father’s empty tomb one frightful winter’s night,
snow falling, glittering & white in the moonlight of a full moon
& soon I discovered the unholy tomb where Father was buried alive
in the deep snow decades ago
& I opened it by chance.

The key
to the other world was a song I sang to Dad,
“I Wish I Had a Sweetheart,”
Mother’s favorite song so long ago
& his empty tomb, a cenotaph without remains, lit up.
& Father awakened, his dark brown eyes sparkling, opening wide.
I sat beside him & he smiled, stood up, & started to dance.

I
gazed at Father, momentarily illuminated & freed from an eerie nothingness,
a fortress in an invisible universe of terrible death,
for sweet music & the romance of love across time
opened the gate to the other world & he swirled back into ours
for a beautiful interlude
dancing the ecstatic dance of divinity
when I dreamed of Father’s empty tomb in the Devil’s Hour
& love, a zephyr from the past in the storm of fear, opened my Father’s soul.