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.
In 2006, my dad was determined to attend the funeral when his last living brother died. The problem was, Daddy, eighty-two at the time, suffered from cognitive impairment bad enough that for months I’d been trying to get him to move to my home in Tennessee. This trip he was intent on taking would have required a cross-country flight from North Carolina to California—maneuvering through airports, finding a hotel and driving unfamiliar roads in a rental car.
“Daddy, you can’t go out there alone,” I said, wedging the phone between my jaw and shoulder to free my hands for folding laundry.
“Well, why not?”
…the son of a ragman
Half-tilt at a stack of 78’s looking for a gem
For Nina, for Dinah, for Phineas Newborn
For Monk
