Outside the hospice ward of the VA Medical Center in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania
Easter, and the glass
enclosure’s clouded
like a rheumy eye. Old
men are smoking,
wheezing in their
service hats and wheelchairs.
We’ve brought my
father’s dog. I know it’s not
a man’s dog, he announces, chihuahua
resting on the blue
quilt draped on his lap.
That’s a great dog
anyway,
says Cecil,
his rumbling basso
hoarse with settled phlegm.
Looks about the right
size for a football.
We lost our last
one. What
starts as laughter
in both throats turns
to rasping, then wet coughs,
echoes from a deep
well. My father says,
I hear come October
we’re not allowed
to smoke here anymore. He looks at me.
You’ll get me out of
here before then, right?
But before I can
answer, another
chair-bound man slowly
scoots over to us,
tells my father, You
look just like Jesus.
I guess I can see it.
The hair, the beard,
the starvation, sallow
skin, scroll parchment
stretched thinly over
wooden finials.
You suffer like he did, he continues.
But I can’t heal you
guys,
my father says.
I wish I could. Another coughing
fit.
You need something? my mother asks,
reaching
in her purse. Yeah, he
says, wiping his mouth
with a trembling
hand. An Enditol pill.
I wonder, What
will be your last pleasure?
A parking lot view, a
few puffs, warm breeze,
smelling secondhand gas
station chicken?
He is risen, and I
realize each thing
opens at its own
pace—our hearts, the first
spring blooms,
church-bound women in yellow hats.
Nincsenek megjegyzések:
Megjegyzés küldése