Faded Blue Hat

Isabella Niven

Faded Blue Hat

Dear Papa,

Sometimes I put on the faded blue hat you used to wear

And I can almost hear you next to me.

As a little girl I would look up at your smiling face

And the blue hat would peek out from your head like part of the ocean somehow floated on your soul.

The hat doesn’t smell like you anymore,

But in those first few days, it brought me back to your embrace.

Sometimes I put on the faded blue hat

And I can hear “Sweet Caroline” echoing through the house,

As if it was a part of the air and came for me to breathe.

I can hear your voice;

Even when you talked you were singing,

Drifting your hand in the air as if you could feel the music turning under your feet as you danced.

Sometimes I put on the faded blue hat and I remember how you used to drink soup from a mug,

How you wore the same pair of shoes for seventeen years,

How you would arrange chocolates in the fridge.

I can hear your jokes,

I can hear everyone laughing with you.

I can taste the watermelon candies you would give to me on Saturdays.

I can smell the sea air from the days we walked by the marina.

All of you isn’t in that faded blue hat,

But when I put it on,

It’s almost like the world never lost you.