(no subject)
Lasting Conversations
He asks me when I got married
and I tell him that’s not me,
that’s my sister,
his younger daughter
that married the school-teacher
last fall.
“Harriet,”
he begins, but I stop him
and tell him that’s his wife’s name,
not mine.
The year is 2010,
not 1967.
He is tired,
his brilliant eyes
are sun-damaged
and now dull.
We are in Los Angeles,
not Minneapolis.
I tell him he shouldn’t
be tearing at his IVs
and screaming at the nurses
to release him from this prison.
Johnson is not our president,
it’s Obama now.
He does not remember
taking me to school
in the blue minivan
he was not ashamed to drive.
Johnny Cash is dead,
so is Sammy Davis Jr.
Beside him
there are full cartons
of apple juice, milk,
untouched water, and
straws left unopened.
The empty cannot be replenished.
He asks me when I got married
and I tell him that’s not me,
that’s my sister,
his younger daughter
that married the school-teacher
last fall.
“Harriet,”
he begins, but I stop him
and tell him that’s his wife’s name,
not mine.
The year is 2010,
not 1967.
He is tired,
his brilliant eyes
are sun-damaged
and now dull.
We are in Los Angeles,
not Minneapolis.
I tell him he shouldn’t
be tearing at his IVs
and screaming at the nurses
to release him from this prison.
Johnson is not our president,
it’s Obama now.
He does not remember
taking me to school
in the blue minivan
he was not ashamed to drive.
Johnny Cash is dead,
so is Sammy Davis Jr.
Beside him
there are full cartons
of apple juice, milk,
untouched water, and
straws left unopened.
The empty cannot be replenished.