On his birthday, my father tries
to eat osso buco with its tiny marrow-spoon.
He scrapes at the shank, a felled tree trunk
on his plate, raises the shreds to his lips
until we cry out, watching them spread
over the table like shame.
From the sixth floor of the surgery tower
two blocks from a frozen Lake Michigan,
I can see a small lighthouse but no boats.
The overcast lake is speckled blue and white
near shore, but far out on the horizon, it’s dark
like a new bruise before the healing begins.
First the catheter, slimmest filament,
slid in by expert hands
The next needle delivers
a pillowy somnolence
your russet-furred rabbit face falling
gently into my cradling palm
Then the final dose,
doctor calculated for your now boney, bunny frame
My mother doesn’t think she’s dying,
but she’s in the ER for the third time
in less than three months while
I’m 2,500 miles away on an island
in the middle of the sea, my sister
sitting with our shrinking mother
We are here.
At the foot of your bed,
I warm your limp feet in my hands.
A daughter cleans your mouth, a thirsty anemone.
Your only action is its eager suckle
of the sponge. My sister’s
offering is careful, sparse—
your retiring body can take little but air.
40 years ago
the night before Halloween
they let me into the frigid room
where they were keeping you
deeply sedated, your skin blue
and clammy, barely alive after
having trouble bringing you back,
with a wicked incision stitched
from collarbone to near navel
He’s sick again.
It’s a major production
getting him to the doctor’s office.
Dressing a paraplegic,
loading the wheelchair,
strapping it down in the van.
Leaving an hour early, just in case.
Always prepared,
I take along a packed bag,
half for him, half for me.
Because you just never know.
What happened to the fish
I ask the receptionist
The plastic seaweed was toxic
She replies with a shrug
So we sit and wait watching
A string of jeweled bubbles rise
To the surface
In the otherwise empty tank
to watch his memory falter,
fail. Light fades and falls. Dark
to watch his memory falter –
Cans of beans: gone. Toothpaste.
A shoe, bills, a sister –
to watch his memory falter,
fail. Light fades, and falls dark.
We’re together in the kitchen when you say
you talked to your new doctor,
the one who ordered up an EKG
because he said he’d heard a skip, a stutter.
drink water
let ocean in
tears roll
erase beach
unground you
There are buttons he can’t slip in notches
And zippers he forgets to zip
There are broccoli stalks that need slicing
And urine stains scoured from floors
There are socks that need feet
And shoes that need their socks
