Dad

[DanaC]

* This is an extremely raw version. I will heavily rewrite it, but here's a first draft.


Dad
I watch you as you walk.
Your footsteps, slower than before.
The dressing gown you wear,
hangs from you, awkward
and more than you need.

A momentary pain
crosses your face,
I see you wince.
Your mouth open slightly
as you struggle to breathe.

I try to cheer you up,
I talk about the programmes that
you watch.
The cop show, American and slick.
I foster interest. I watch the same show.

Something I say catches your ear,
You smile, a small grin.
And I see my brother there.
In the rope of muscles tensing down your arm,
Your stance, the way you lean against the wall.

Was that how you used to look?
So long ago, I didn’t know,
the way that this would go.
In the end, is this the way it all goes?
Echoes of a face that I once knew.

The hacking cough at night,
the sleeplessness.
The nurses cannot know, they’d never guess,
How neatly that you ate.
The way you’d fold the wrapper of a sweet.


I flatter you with memory.
I change you every time I think of you.
I take a decade off,
I change the view.
It shocks me every time that I see you.