For my dad, when he was eight

Sometimes, especially on days when I wake before the sun, 
I cry and don't know why.
I think most people do occasionally. 

Last week I received a brown envelope
full of old passports. 
I stood at the countertop and opened it with my nail.

I flipped through the top few
and examined my grandfather's picture,
the stamps, the places he'd been, his signature on the line. 

And then, at the bottom of the stack, there was my father. 
I knew without reading the name. 

He had the same half-smile
and open eyes and way he tilted his head. 

And then I was crying
and I think I was happy. 
I remember smiling
and licking a tear from my top lip.

I couldn't stop looking at that tiny worn passport photo. 
I couldn't figure out how all that rain got inside my heart. 

Sometimes, I think when we're desperate
we see ourselves in people we love. 
Right then, with the envelope open on the countertop
and the pages of a past memory parted in my hands,
I was someone I never had found before. 
And I think I liked it. 

I think I liked crying over a passport photo
from before anyone could comprehend my existence.