Today is my father’s birthday
or, it would have been.

(Do dead people celebrate birthdays?
When they go to blow out the candle,
do they summon a dramatic
gust of wind
from a nearby window
to blow out their candle,
while also scaring any superstitious people nearby?)

We would meet up for dinner and cake.
I bet he would make fun of my beard.
The little patch
on the right side of my chin
where hair doesn’t grow,
tracing it with his finger,
laughing
because he can’t grow hair in that same spot either.

Maybe this would have been the year
he started looking old.
The benefit of being dead
when you’re young is that
everyone
will always remember you
as being young and attractive
not old and wrinkled and splotchy
spider-web veins across your hands
forgetting where you put the car keys.
You can stay young and invincible
forever.

Anyway.

We would make small talk about
our jobs
the people we work for
how awful some of our coworkers are
and how strange the world’s become.
We’d order dessert
(even though we’d both be full already)
not because we want it
but because traditions are important.
He’d blow out the candle
wish for something silly
and we’d hug before getting in our
separate cars
and heading in different directions
into the night.

That’s what would have happened,
probably.

Instead, I’m going to go home early
grab some takeout
and sit on the touch, eating dinner
with the clear-skinned lady
from the acne commercial
and the newscasters with serious faces
and idly trace my finger
along the right side of my chin
in the patch where the hair doesn’t grow.