Fatherless

His army sergeant, two-months-at-home father
was a cigarette-smell-achkan he embraced                                  
in the wooden almirah kept in his mother's room.                       

His scarred-on-chest father was a smiling photo-frame
he often touched, by using a chair to scale the table.

His word-of-mouth father was his mother's reading voice
that came home, in blue, 'inland' envelopes,
glowing with rusty, red stamps from Border posts.

achkan: Indian coat

almirah: closet

(First published in Breakwater Review)