Trying To Find Him Poem by Max Reif

The problem is,
a family's a family,
and then when you grow up,
it may not be,

and when dad and I
sat in that booth at Denny's
a year before he died
and just before I moved
back here to California,

I tried to find the man
who'd held me once on his lap
and sang 'Sonny Boy, '
I tried to be that Sonny Boy,

but I searched in a flurry
through all the molecules
of available air
for some that might conduct
our love to one another again,

and I had to make do with the memory
and a gruff old man in front of me
who didn't seem to approve
of anything I did,
yet didn't want me to leave