“Seiche” by Debbie Walker-Lass

My dad passed away after scratching off a losing lottery ticket the day before,

lucid and luminous, haloed by the stark white tucked in around him like the

pleated blanket of snow he abhorred but wouldn’t leave, the small garage my

brother built for him anchoring him to godforsaken Michigan winters, this, too,

a confinement, like the bed, and the chair, a sentence served begrudgingly,

yet, somehow, rakishly. His always- open door was an invitation to coffee-contingent

entertainment. If you made the coffee, he would unfurl a story from his vault, all based

in truth, or what felt true to him now.

I never knew if he wanted a family, I don’t think anyone ever asked him. He loved

my mother, and that was that-he took up the mantle of us, breaking every day, & while

we knew other heroes that went to repent on Sunday, he swallowed it all unto himself,

& while other dads took their broods “Up North” every summer, to swim in the icy water,

deep as the ocean in some uncertain places, we usually stayed home. Mom disliked the

freezing lakes, preferring the Pacific she had swam in only once, in California.

The lakes weren't tempered by the low latitudes & stored-up sunlight of the sea, due to winter-

frost. They were not inter-connected, & being smaller than the oceans, remained bracingly cold,

(even in July) their wave heights difficult to ascertain- though, on the rare occasion he took us

there, we thought them enormous.

Without preamble, my brother would dive in, disappearing for a second or three, until, blue-

lipped and triumphant, he emerged, scared-giggling, my mother bellowing his name.

Lake Michigan is considered non-tidal: Though pulled by the sun & moon, the variations in

crests are too small to measure-frequently mistaken for a tide, they are merely oscillating waves,

defined as “Seiche,” meaning “Standing wave.”

As we crouched bedside, his last story seemed to hang in the stagnant air. Something about the

first telephone wired into a house on Galloway Street, where he grew up. Suddenly, he shifted,

groaning uncomfortably, taking one last form. The gray smoke curled around his wild, wiry hair,

which surrounded the crumpled sun of his face. No words left, he gave a half-hearted wave, and

fell back into the white, curling tightly into himself, leaving only the wreckage of us. 

He gave us his all

Till he lost sight of shore

Rippling goodbye

Debbie Walker-Lass, (she/her) is a poet, artist, and writer living in Decatur, Georgia. Recent work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Collaborature, The Rockvale Review, Green Ink Poetry, Punk Monk, Poetry Quarterly, The Light Ekphrastic and The Niagara Poetry Journal, among others. Debbie was nominated by TER for the “Best Small Fictions, 2024.” Her poem “Whispers In The Grass” was poem of the month in Collaborature last Fall. She also collaborates with J.Z. Wood, writing poetry as “The 1965.”