My father and I as nowhere men
between gun shots and gummy worms.

My dad says that the days
are bad now because when he wakes up it's dark 
and when he gets home it's dark. 
I ask him what I can do
for him and he says 
SHOOT ME
and he laughs like he always does.
SHOOT ME
I don't tell my father much anymore.
I don't tell him that I feel that way 
too like
SHOOT ME
I don't tell him that when I'm sad
I think about eating gummy worms with him
under a willow tree at the farmer's
market. I remember how we play with the radio
until it sang to us from the GREEN APPLE
Beatles CD
and I don't tell him that when I feel
like I want to run away I imagine 
that corn field in July after
karate practice when he stopped our
jeep just so I could fill my pockets
with lightning bugs.
I don't tell him I think there's less
lightning bugs now.
I want to tell him--
me too
me too
me too
me too-- I feel like ice cube trays.
Me too I spin myself in the afternoons
to the turn of a
Beatles record with John Lennon 
singing 
Nowhere man 
nowhere man 
nowhere man 
I used to think my father wrote that song
but now I knew we're both
just NOWHERE MEN
I think we understand each other
through some sort of thing called 
melancholy-- it's the language
we talk over telephones-- 
in between the notches of a record--
and from the front seats 
of the van.
I see us in the same
morning saunter between
a kitchen counter and a digital 
clock. My father doesn't eat breakfast
and I eat grapes from a measuring cup
at the kitchen table-- perched like
a bottle cap on from porch--
My father doesn't watch the news but
we can compromise on watching 
Arthur on PBS from opposite sides
of a slumped sofa. I learn to drink
coffee and when he opens his
diet coke it sounds like the cracked 
knuckles of an ice cube tray.
And the radio in his jeep 
sings 
Nowhere Man, please listen
You don't know what you're missing
Nowhere Man, the world is at 
your command
We talk melancholy there until he
asks me if I would be ready when 
the sun came up--
and the digital clock reads 5:55am
and we walk out into the back yard 
for the last time as NOWHERE MEN.
The same back yard where I practiced 
karate with my father who was
always a sensei--
The grass makes our feet
wet with dew-- we don't
wear shoes and the sky is orange
and yellow
and burnt like lightning bug tails.
he pulls out a gun and so do I
point at each other
we both close our eyes
when we pull the triggers 
and it sounds like the opening 
of a can of diet coke and 
the digital clock is screeching
6:00am 6:00am 6:00am
we're both late to nowhere--
and we wake up on opposite
sides of the slumped sofa
after the gun shots--
look at each other for an instant
and go back to drinking coffee
and diet coke.
I perch like a bottle cap and he 
hangs his head like a willow tree.
SHOOT ME
he says and he laughs like ice cubes.
SHOOT ME
I say and I pass him a gummy worm
while he hums 
Nowhere man, nowhere man, nowhere man.