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.
