DOMUS

Doped on the day-bed in the maple-stained
sunlight flowing through the bow window he built—

it leaked and, though stopgapped, dark watermarks
still flaw the stanchions that anchor the panes—

my father, propped up on pillows, reclines,
gnarled, arthritic hands crossed on his breastbone,

mouth open a crack and jaw slack, so that
his bottom lip underhangs the top and his face

makes an uncanny true-flesh facsimile
of the death mask of Brunelleschi,

at rest beneath the improbable, homely
softwood cathedral he raised with his hands.