Being Dad

I take a tottering step to the bathroom,

barefoot in the middle of the night,

and strangely think myself my father,

not just like him, he, himself. 

Losing his wife did not define him

completely, more than anything else;

nor did it his father, also a widower.

Nor does it me, a third, plodding widower,

knowing this life can be lived well enough,

and people have already done it, probably

sometimes in the dark.