In winter we shape the absence
between us with our breaths.
Father says, Don’t be such a stranger,
and I watch the words rise out of him,
each puff of air condense and disappear.

He unleashes his driver –
Never too late to take over
the business … and shanks into the trees.
I shelve my woods and use the cleek –
I’ve got a life you never ask about.

At the frozen water hole,
his ball hits ice, bounds
two hundred yards down rough;
mine slices into woods, caroms out.
We flub our way down fairways.

What’s your handicap?he asks,
and we talk of missed shots,
summer storms that nearly
killed us on the course.
I try to imagine a thaw

between us, just as I imagine stars and planets
issuing from black holes of Magellanic Clouds.
He would find my words absurd,
as I often find his praise
of plastics, pellets dull as old ice,

the dies molding something malleable
into frozen, familiar shapes –
plastic flowers and children’s toys,
these lines and stanzas,
these white hesitations.