text: Print version of from "A Brief History of Fathers Searching for Their Sons" [5. Portrait of a Father After His Son's Memorial Service]
  from "A Brief History of Fathers Searching for Their Sons" [5. Portrait of a Father After His Son's Memorial Service]
  There's a man who sits on a bench
  waiting for a train, though the trains
  arrive and depart and the man remains
  seated, the heaviness of resignation on
  his face. As evening falls the light flickers
  awake in the waiting room and a moth
  begins to flutter in and out of sight
  until it rests finally on the white bulb
  above his head. All things come to calm
  this way—even the trains. The cycles
  of grinding metal stretch out into yawns—
  each iron wheel a flower folding its petals in.
  Night concludes its hymn. The man rises but
  hesitates to leave this station of his cross.
  From The Book of Ruin. Copyright © 2019 by Rigoberto González. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Four Way Books.
  Source URL: https://poets.org/poem/brief-history-fathers-searching-their-sons-5-portrait-father-after-his-sons-memorial-service