Share   Print  Save   Become a Fan

Seeing My Father for the First Time in Eight Years, in the Hospital After a Heart Attack

Yesterday,
the nurse called me
at work and said: It doesn’t look
good for him. He said you’re
his next-of-kin.

Could I have told her about that day
when you threw
the vase at me
and I ran
out into the snow,
barefoot,
and never returned?
I doubt
that she ever could have
understood
the way things were, then.

So I said: I will
come.
I had
no other choice. I filled
my old Nissan up with the cheapest
gasoline

and came to see you die.

nine hundred and twenty-seven miles
twenty-one hours
three McDonald’s rest stops
seven greasy filling stations:

It’s like that game
we used to play
that I have since forgotten
the point of:

I’m taking one soda-pop.
I’m taking one soda-pop and two eagles.
I’m taking one soda-pop, two eagles, and three picture books.
I’m taking one soda-pop, two eagles, three picture books, and four bayonets.

Was the point of the game remembering?

Finally,
at dusk, I entered
the gates of the city
that is only vaguely familiar
now. Once I knew
its skyscrapers, its housing projects, its sewer systems,
the drains where the muddy Missouri
flooded every springtime.

...I’m taking four bayonets and five leapfrogs.
four bayonets, five leapfrogs, and six eggplants.
four bayonets, five leapfrogs, six eggplants, and seven pyres.

I found the hospital and it
was just as faded
as when I last saw it.

The sky darkened, and the nurse
wouldn’t let me into your room:

Visiting hours are over, dear. Come back
tomorrow.