Hospice Dad

 

Comforted by bed, blankets, and morphine,
He dreams of ninety-eight years.
From cabins to tents to farms to town,
Mastering piano as a performer,
Supporting a family on a musician's pocket
And an entitled sportsman's distractions.
When he wrote of his memories, some time back,
He didn't mention any of us. We were in his life
But we didn't do much to speak of.

In perpetual not-quite-retirement,
Building boats, he found his milieu.
He was popular, part of the conversation.
Then the strokes started subtracting him,
Shock by shock, never finishing the job.
He came back from it each time
Always diminished but still unreeling,
Still unwinding, years of string, floss, threads of past events,
Loosed and spun away from the shrinking core
Until his final bit flakes off on a breeze
And he goes from being more here than gone
To being more gone than here,
Remembered by the ones he forgot.
.