- my father was wasting away in a far but efficient hospital -
and my 6-month-old son
was playing with his toes,
smiling at every attempt
to make him smile.
There was a knock at the rear door
and in came my father with that slightly annoyed look on his face
which he used when his son
proved to be incapable
of things he�d always tried
to teach him well.
So I hurried to offer him a coffee
(I think my father should know this is happening I thought vaguely,
but I couldn�t decide
if such a thing would hurt him)
and he accepted reluctantly,
showing me his watch.
But when he started talking,
muffled at first but then gradually gaining in power and strength,
every word was truer
than anything I knew.
Even my son, wiser than me,
did smilingly agree.
It was then I realized
that he was living his life to such an extreme it could only be
when dying in a hospital bed,
laying aside all dignity
and shame and other baggage -
drowned in sweet morphine.
So now I�m driving down the highway
with my son in the backseat, ruminating things to come,
and I know I�ll be too late.
But that�s OK because
he bore me time to live
for all eternity.
