Annunciation

O faith!
(as small as a poppy seed)
how magnificat the news,
for unto us a child is born.

Immanuel--
I do believe.

Sweetheart

“How are you?”

I asked.

You,

lying in a manor-care bed

as Wheel of Fortune played on the TV.

“Well.”

“I’m here,” you said

with what hoped to pass for dinner

sitting on the tray before you,

“but I could really go for a hot dog.”

So rare—these glimpses of lucidity.

Or was it really I who dreamed?

that somewhere watched behind your eyes

the man from Mom’s old stories

(before resuscitation got half-right

what your heart attack had made all wrong)

not just the man who could only play Phase 10?

I loved them both.

We sat and talked

once

on your porch on Arion St.

while Mom and Grandma talked inside.

You pointed out your neighbors,

said,

“She makes him smile every day.”

“That’s what you have to do.”

“Find someone who makes you smile.”

I did.

She drove with me to see you

the night you passed away,

and we collected at your VA bed

like seven cards of one color

(Pap’s collecting blue!)

She and I the last two cards

before you played out your hand

(it didn’t look like yours anymore)

Both my wife and Grandma say you waited,

but I’m not sure it didn’t have to do

with doing 90 in a 55 on the way there.

After you died

Mom,

or Grandma,

(I really can’t remember which)

gave me some copies of the poems you wrote.

I keep them in the bedside table

and scanned to PDF on my computer.

They’re all better than this one.

You wrote about your fear

to meet your dad,

who gave you up.

That bastard didn’t deserve to get to know you.

I do.

I dreamt I did

(after you died)

not just in lucid glimpses—

but seated at my parents’ dining-room table.

You looked like yourself

from my Mom’s old photos,

and you were here.

You remembered everything,

and we just sat and talked

until my damned alarm went off.