My Father’s Father’s Son

You could see their sameness
in the boyish grin:

an extra twinkle and a wink
slipped inside every smile
flipped their eyes back time
and turned their faces twin.

You could hear it ripple out
around the pebble of laughter
that they tossed to start movement
in a dull swamp of room,

taste it in the flavor
of high-pitched silliness
that they laced around the edges
of every soft friendship.

I noticed it mostly
up around the shoulders:
straight-and-narrow square
even when wheelchaired in,
they never consented
to gravity’s heist,
never lost sight
of the love in their lives.

They burned galaxy bright.

It was expansive energy
that bound them in tight;
this particular strain of DNA
less about noses and height and shape,

more about morals and trying again,
and happy hellos,
and faithful-true ends.