Self-Portrait

by Michael Beard

The United States Postal Service thinks
my father and I are the same person living 
in two places at once.

I have the mail to prove it, our likeness—
how he names me again
and again with each new envelope.
This time, AARP

advertising its member benefits, a card
with the next three to five years reflecting in the light
(depending on our bundle preference.)

I rip apart what time we don’t need
as if we have plenty— 
                                      misdelivered hospital
bills burning a hole in the coffee table, the endlessness in those zeros—

how I can’t stop imagining the day
my father’s death will be sent to me, unmarked
envelope, the empty space
a breath where our name has always been familiar,

then all the regular mail, far off in years, 
waiting for me and only me—

,