My dad's 81st birthday is this week

Ceremony Under Artificial Light

It was a tiny afternoon—it
fit inside a thimble.
To kill time we shopped,
while at the hospital:
the surgeon’s scalpel
the drill-

The lid of his skull
a porcelain bowl
for a tea ceremony—

Dad sailed from Borneo to Singapore
a hundred times
and sang karaoke
at the sushi bars in Osaka.
On a Navy base in Vietnam,
he won a medal for diplomacy
and produced "A Lion
In Winter" for the troops.
(When Walter got drunk and mean, Dad
dressed in the dark to walk barefoot
across the street).

In the surgeon’s palm, my
father’s tea bowl—
the spiced smoke of incense
the echo of a ringing bell
foot-lights tracing a dark stage