i work at a halfway house for men coming out of prisonsometimes they have been in for years
more often it has been days, weeks or months
one man came to the house
on a weekend program
during the week he lives at home
and on the weekends he stays at the halfway house
what is interesting about this man is that
he was with the RCR, the royal canadians
so was my father
they were both in the RCR in the late fifties
this man knew my father twenty-eight years ago
when they were both young with hair on their heads
and much smaller stomachs
although he never did
it would have been possible
for this man
to have held me in his arms
when i was a baby in diapers
held me in his arms and asked my father
in a wondering sort of way
what he thought might become of his son
or what he thought of their future
just think of it
twenty-eight years and all of the world
and we end upon the opposite sides of a desk
me, holding the keys and unlocking the doors
him, telling me old army stories
describing my father in elaborate
but ancient detail
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