“Have You Ever Written a Poem about Death?” My Mother Asks
We keep saying “it’s ok it’s ok it’s ok”
to the improvisations sweeping through my father’s body
like apnea,
like anaerobic gewgaw plumes radiating from what he is and was and is.
I can’t know what it will be like when he’s gone.
He’s not Williams’s “godforsaken curio” showing up
in the third draft of “Death.”
That man there is my father.
This man here, right here.
Only in these last long years have I been able to comfort him,
I wouldn’t have dared before, he distrusted comfort
and drank his coffee black to avoid the inconvenience of milk.
Now I can put my hand right here on his head.
And all I need to do is keep my face calm, a calm mirror
to his blank and seeking eyes.
That man there is my father.
This man here, right here.
I’ve used the word hospice before, without understanding,
just listening to the ad hoc hiss
and preternatural apneic sprinklers of childhood,
the dark green hose of
death feeding the extraordinary plumes.
