My father teased out lightning 
from behind his ears
as if it came from the sky.

He reappeared
at the end of the day
as if he had never been gone.

Poof.

And now that he is gone,
he has a way
of being here still.

Shuffle the days,
he is the King, Queen, Jack
of all hearts,
not just mine.

I spread him around
when I say to a child,
"When I was your age
I was twenty-five."

No need to go backwards
or live in the past.

I am carried by the clouds 
of all my ancestors.
This undulating weather,
this ghostly rain,
this magic sun.

For the past 15 years, Amy Segerstrom has been the Coordinator of The Healing Place: Center for Life’s Journeys which is a department of Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire. “Magician,” reprinted here by permission of the author, is one of several poems included in the book Goodbye to Lonesome Valley which is available at The Local Store