Playing golf with Daddy's old putter
is walking beside him on the greens,
his phantom step deliberate
as the weight of the clubhead
settles into my palm.
The black Spalding grip
looks cracked and obsolete—
brittle bark peeling from a spent birch—
yet yields beneath my thumb
soft as his hand became
in the bed,
when the squeeze was all he had left:
the only faculty that remained
to say I see you. I missed you.
I line up the shot.
The blade is smooth as polished bone—
no friction at impact, no rough edge
to catch the ball and send it wild.
Too light to overshoot.
A whisper-touch, nothing more,
the way I always kissed his cheek goodbye.
The ball rolls straight
down the manufactured green.
For a breath's length
I am seven again,
watching him read the slope,
his broad shadow eclipsing mine,
his voice low and instructive:
Feel the grass first. Trust the line.
I walk to the next hole.
His hands were always too soft
for a man his size, his sportiness—
hands that gave him away:
the pen, not the sword.
Perhaps playing golf was as rough
as his hands would ever get.
But I miss his quiet stroll,
the silence we kept between shots,
and his voice when it broke the stillness—
Good shot!—carrying my ball into the cup.