December 16, 2020Smoking Shelter
Outside the hospice ward of the VA Medical Center in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania
Easter, and the glass enclosure’s clouded
like a rheumy eye. Old men are smoking,
wheezing in their service hats and wheelchairs.
We’ve brought my father’s dog. I know it’s not
a man’s dog, he announces, chihuahua
resting on the blue quilt draped on his lap.
That’s a great dog anyway, says Cecil,
his rumbling basso hoarse with settled phlegm.
Looks about the right size for a football.
We lost our last one. What starts as laughter
in both throats turns to rasping, then wet coughs,
echoes from a deep well. My father says,
I hear come October we’re not allowed
to smoke here anymore. He looks at me.
You’ll get me out of here before then, right?
But before I can answer, another
chair-bound man slowly scoots over to us,
tells my father, You look just like Jesus.
I guess I can see it. The hair, the beard,
the starvation, sallow skin, scroll parchment
stretched thinly over wooden finials.
You suffer like he did, he continues.
But I can’t heal you guys, my father says.
I wish I could. Another coughing fit.
You need something? my mother asks, reaching
in her purse. Yeah, he says, wiping his mouth
with a trembling hand. An Enditol pill.
I wonder, What will be your last pleasure?
A parking lot view, a few puffs, warm breeze,
smelling secondhand gas station chicken?
He is risen, and I realize each thing
opens at its own pace—our hearts, the first
spring blooms, church-bound women in yellow hats.
from #69 - Fall 2020