keeping records

Does my father have friends?
Once, he spoke of a college friend
now lost to another city, to whom
his record collection was promised in death.

How I wanted his records.
Does my father know how I in those small years
wanted to be his friend?
Did he carry it with him,
my wide-eyed admiration,

when he journeyed out to Home Depot
selling floors to put a roof over us?
Did he have friends there?
Did his coworkers – most half his age –
extend their hands in comradery to him?

Sometimes he showed me his record collection.
Perhaps he was just listening and I, just there.
To me, it seemed an occasion:
reaching back with Dark Side, Tommy, Sgt. Pepper.
Voices sounding from somewhere far beyond
yet not too grand to fill the space between us
in a cigarette smoked room.

When I listen to the same albums now
I tear through the lyrics for hidden lessons,
proverbs I pretend he meant to lend me.
How I wanted his records

but I have never asked for them
and he has never offered.
Both of us are too embarrassed
and the records, apathetic and warping.

I navigate new friendships now,
out in the world but mostly alone.
Once, days before I was to move out,
he put on She’s Leaving Home, Lonely Hearts again.

What did we do that was wrong?
It goes: We didn’t know it was wrong.
The girl in the song leaves home anyway.
Of course I know he didn’t know.
I do not hold it against him.