THE SAND HILL REVIEW http://www.sandhillreview.org 2001
May
My
father smells of dried leaves,
He
slides inward, cocoons.
His
meal matters less than the arm chair
where
he slips along the seam.
Sleeptalking, he mumbles
that
his grandmother teaches him,
pointing
with her lower lip.
He
flutters back to boyhood,
Mama Meche's home squared round the patio.
He
alights on the tile floor, cold, uneven.
A
hospital bed smells dry as the leaves.
He
gasps into a clear plastic mask.
I hold
his hand, tell him I hold his hand.
He
gasps, he knows.