My Dad – a poem

My Dad.
A bus-driver on the early shift.
He looks to maps for everything.
Checking his route before he moves.
Up an hour early every day.
3am.  I’m still trying to fall asleep. 
Getting up out of frustration, I go upstairs.
Dad is kneeling, bent over.  I hear him.
Whimpering.  Next to the wall – barely space to breathe.
He’s praying, crying. 
He looks up at me, tears in his eyes, face a grimace.
I know that look.  The emotion written there: guilt.
I feel guilty because I don’t feel the same as he does.
He’s making up for lost time with God.
Time when he didn’t believe, either.
Am I losing time right now?
Will that be me in 20 years?
Prostrated before a dime-store picture of Jesus, apologizing for my life?