Forgetting

As parts of
her drift away,

weightlessly

as if released into
the infinite darkness
of that eternal night,

laughing memories
of our life together,
important names,
evocative music,
the taste of enchiladas,

are evaporating
as ice cubes on
a summer sidewalk.

Thankfully,
along with
those treasures,
my mother
is also forgetting
the cold score keeping,
the distance, the invulnerability,
the pain of
my father's abrupt departure,

and I find
that she says
she loves me
far more easily.

You Just Can't Please Some People

March 1999:

When my father
was taken
at 64,
two days after
his own mother,

I was angry
and I said,

"God,
why did You take him
so quickly?

I didn't even
get a chance to
say goodbye."

June 2020:

As I watch
my mother
video-calling from
her newly-installed
hospital bed,

I hear the
fatigue and slow-surrender
in her voice,

and her mind
is disconnecting,
her memories
are falling away
like rare coins
from the worn pockets
of her lifetime,

and the pain
of this sight
makes me think

"God,
why are You
taking so long
to welcome her
home?"

Folly

You can fight it
but in the end,
it always wins.

So try
and steal as many
breaths
memories
orgasms
possible.

If you’re lucky
a handful of survivors
will hardly remember
you were
ever here,
and if you’re
luckier,
all your missteps
will fade from
collective memory.

Since I cannot
control it,
I try not to fear it,
but rather
I keep it
in the back
of my mind,
and the front
of my actions:

no matter what,
each of us
leaves behind a skull,
some bones,
rare moments truly lived,
and the folly
of imagining
one more tomorrow,
just out of reach.

Exhausted

Why drive to the gym
when I'm so close to the grave?

The Darkest Hour

It wasn’t
the darkest hour
when I found out
he died.

I prayed
it was merely
a week-long nightmare
from which
I’d awaken.

Still,
I’d cried, laughed
written a eulogy
but mostly
that week
I held my breath
magically thinking
I’d awaken
and not be
fatherless.

The darkest hour
came later
when my widowed mother
couldn’t bear
to let anyone
go home.

The funeral was done.
The reception was finished.
Her house was empty.

Crushed
by the weight
of his absence
the darkest hour
that started
in 1999

still isn’t finished
yet.

I (Take My Meds)

Inevitability
presses on this
growing pate
with the predictability
of gravity.

I see his
eyes squinting
in service
of his smile,
and I see him
looking back at me
in the mirror.

I hear him
repeating everything
twice,
just like I do,
like I do.

I'm a wee bit taller
than he was
but he was more lithe,
more trim
than his lazy glutton son.

I happily take
my chemicals
that sound like
foreign banana republics:

Simvastin,
Metformin,
Lisinopril.

I have one
advantage of him:

I know how old he was
when he suddenly
had that one
kick-ass strong
heart attack
that claimed him.

I am 54 and
he died at 64.

I can do math.

I take my meds.

[Written for Poets United:  http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2018/01/poets-united-midweek-motif-poetry-about.html]

The Foggy Unknown

Just as we
cannot predict
which hue of blue
the sky will be today,

or how the really
best films
are going to end,

or how sweet
the red-black cherry is,

no one knows
exactly
how this will
turn out.

I couldn’t predict
my world changing
-thunder loud and
lightening fast-
with a phone call,
telling me Pop died
unexpectedly
two days after
his own mother died.

My world was
not just thrown,
but cosmically fucked
off its axis,
my compass pointed
in every direction

and each way ahead
was soft, foggy
and unknown.

Some paths were bright,
some dark gray,
a few even black,
but none of them
were clear.

I got lost trying to find
my way back
to my life before,
until eventually,
I gave up that
search,

realizing
his death
also erased
who I thought
I was.

Only when I accepted
I couldn’t go back,
then I started moving

forward.

Be not afraid
of what the world
and this life have
waiting for you.

Stay open to
the foggy unknown
for one day
it will be
your turn,

and then you’ll be
reunited,

and it’ll all
make sense.

Right now,
however,
it remains
a heartbreaking
mystery.

Written for D'Verse Poets's prompt: Poems To Save a Life

Last Words

"I said
everything
I needed to say.

You found me
guilty anyway.

I don't expect
any mercy,
any understanding.

That's beyond the scope
of what you mere mortals
will ever  understand.

So I leave you here
but my blood is
on your hands,
my death is
on your head.

Someday
when the evidence finally
exonerates me,

you'll see.

But,
how are you going to make it up
to my kids?

You're taking away
their father,
and you know it was all
circumstantial.

You will have to lived
with this.

I won't.

I'm free.

That's all."