The walnut table stands between them
a distance of thirty years
On it they weigh, jaws against their fists,
the diameter of their breathing,
the circumference of their love and hate
They feel the depth of their emptiness
in proportion to the volume of their voices
The tonnage of old words holds down their tongues
until they hear their voices splinter and crack:
“You are not my Father, I told you once”
“You are no son of mine, I shouted back”
Only when they push the table aside,
thirty years after it pulled them apart,
only then, all distance, all weight, all volume,
becomes compressed between the chests
of two sobbing men who measured each motion,
each word, too often, too long