Human Torpedo

I was launched below the water’s surface towards a target.

I was born from a hired gun & wet desire.

5’10”, 170 lbs, they called you the human torpedo,

3 Stanley Cups for the Maple Leafs,

best body-checking forward of all time.

          Imagine a body thrusting

                        a body ice-spinning

                        a 100-mph slapshot.

Call it revolution, watch it spiral—just know

           the air-breathing, body-driven engine of inevitable.

           Incoming.

There was striking. Bone-on-bone.

           There was blood, stitches.

And now—

My head’s on the block of you

           and the ax of truth comes down:

There’s a world in your forearm—

           a night in your strike.

I can fly like you—

           I can strike like you.

           I am spinning. Otherworldly. Other body.

           I can see you now—

           you’re beautiful.

You’re righteous and sweet in my dark.

Primal, elemental—

huge pines surround a lake with giant logs streaming in it—

the scale of another time.

Our family tree is the dirtline to Winnipeg—

the spinning torpedo of desire that never lands—

the city of your body—

you were my father.