dad email

sometimes my dad sends me blank emails.
i think of them each as walls.
four in a row make a bedroom.
five in a row, a house with one side
of the roof missing. other days
he will write to me like i am dead 
& he misses me. i will reply in the same tone.
as if i am a ghost writing to him
& telling him i am at peace. once,
i sent an image of myself & a partner.
somehow in the transit, the picture turned
into just a picture of two song birds.
my father replied, "i am hungry."
i used to watch him pluck the feathers
from birds in our yard. no, he was not
preparing them to eat. he just wanted them
to know what it felt like to be earth bound.
i am terrified of my father. i want him
to send me a pair of shoes i could live inside.
when he was at work i would become 
a hermit inside his clothes. tent of a t-shirt.
curled up inside a chuck taylor. 
i have never sent a wall back. instead i tell him
i love him. instead i send him eyelashes
so that he can remember exactly how
i used to come apart in his house.
no matter where you go, your daughter-self
remains like a limb. i have put mine
in a little room. four walls. but still she says,
"he could be what we want him to be." 
i brush her hair each night. i check my email
& hold my breath, bracing for another signal
from him. when one doesn't come
i don't feel relief. instead, i check my inbox
all night. once he emailed me a whole room
in one night. i had to crawl inside it.
look in the cupboards. there i saw photographs 
of myself & him. in all of them our eyes 
were scooped out. i fled. tonight though
the inbox is empty & somehow i'm still waiting.