i take the empty midnight elevator ride
up into the bowels of the cancer wing
where he lies broken covered in blisters
parched like a shriveled oak leaf fallen
twisting under an August midday sun.
Just the two of us now and his laboring
breaths i time with my own heartbeats.
Undoubtedly, it is here we are confined
to be bluntly shown death and infirmity
that the moment has come, expectedly,
denied, then cruelly inescapable for us.
Morning they’ll pass through here again
found relatives and bleary-eyed friends
trading his quiet peace for condolences
finding my sister ruptured beyond hiding
pains black and heavy as trapped stones
on the dark bottom of a silent river bed.
What can anyone say really on a specter
of an idea not for their comprehension.
What should we say even for each other
when the toxic combination of sedatives
and chemo sets his skin on fire as he casts
delirious away blankets exposing a failed
body to our red welling eyes and oblivion.
So near the end we simply pray for release,
for that moment when we can bring our
father intact home again, a subdued heart
left dignity, dreams grandiose unrealized,
to where our mother sits gazing out from
their bedroom window through the pines
wondering if her journey for love has been
worthwhile after all over the twisting road
of inadequate apologies to wishful reversal
living a widowed irony.
(our Dad who fought a hard, at times heroic, battle and lost to cancer.)
*photo with permission and credit to Chad Latta
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chadlatta/4104477481/in/pool-342145@N24/
