notsosoft

Family Business

My father is calling me again
to say how well the business is going.
He recites numbers
with the awestruck reverence
of a child memorizing psalms,
and he has forgotten
that today I am twenty.
I bite my lip and ask about new clients,
reassured that my blood
still tastes like the ocean,
remembering that it was my mother
who taught me how to lift my feet
and drift with my back to the waves.