Nothing serious
she said
but I flew anyway
to find him in a hospital
bed, of course he was mad
I wasted the time,
said he’d be fine in a day or so.
He was lucid,
talked Cowboys and Diamondbacks–
his two teams,
the food, my sons, the nurses,
his Elks Lodge cronies
waiting for him
to get back in drinking form.
And then, in between bites
of brown pudding,
he nodded toward an empty chair,
asked if he was hungry.
I froze. Dad asked again.
I stammered
“He just ate” and that sufficed.
In the morning
I flew home to photograph
a factory and thought
how odd that from him begat me,
much the same, wildly different.
This time she called
it was serious.
In two days he’d gone yellow,
pissed his Diamondbacks lost,
not worried his kidneys were gone.
“Does he want some coffee?”
I stared at the chair.
How long’s he been there?
“Since I got here.”
He faded into the night
shift, hanging on
small painful breaths.
We watched football, him in a chemical sleep, me
holding his melting hand, as if to keep him
from going
someplace he shouldn’t.
The doctor came in, examined us,
reminded me the dying
don’t always know when to leave.
Minutes after midnight I whispered
“Dad, its time to go with the man in the chair.”
I kissed him and they left
my 49th birthday.