It rained hard that night.
Dad had read a poem I wrote 
about angels falling,
littering the ground with anemone.

All it meant to him was that I was lost,
my brown eyes confirming the diagnosis.
He would know. He was among the first
to link the biochemistry of the brain
to Jupiter and Mars, serotonin to the speed of light.

O hoher Baum im Ohr. That’s Rilke’s tree in my ear.
To Dad, Rilke, too, was sick in the head.
So, there I was on the road, Rilke
singing, the trees leaning in. 
I could live with that.