IDLING
Cynthia Ruth Lewis
Beyond a knot of trees in the
parking lot, the hospital looms
like a great, white bandage
masking illness and gore,
and shielding you, Dad, whose
face I’d barely known before;
features originally thinned by
emotional vacuity, now whittled
by cancer and aggravated by an
unwillingness to live--
having merely glided through
existence, you’d given up long ago
when you were still whole, disregarding
your own life and family, both
overlooked like a small, new-colored
mole. Now, your submissive bones mold
their shape to these walls. Through
the halls, the sterile silence is
deafening; murmurs of nurses voices
and rolling gurneys hushed only by the
sound of waiting as minutes blend
into hours, and days fold into nights
that never change. I see your face
through every door I pass; figures
cowered beneath sheets praying for
salvation, medication, sleep. You could
be any one of them. I tremble as I near
your bed, that vacancy called ‘Dad.’
the fact that I am part of you is
frightening, enough, but your empty
gaze tells me that you do not care...
and I’ve wasted a trip to let you know
I’m here: the gas gauge had tipped
at ‘E,’ but I drove blindly to get
to you, to let you know you’re still
family...but that is dismissed with
your wordlessness; letting go, letting
the whole thing drop as you turn from
me towards the wall, that blank retreat
that holds you safely, expecting nothing
in return...and I must leave with your
reply to guide me, to get me through that
door back out into the light of day,
into the world truly numbed, no longer
feeling the warm sun on my face, and
hoping I have enough ammunition to coast
through the stretch of afternoon in
search of gas before the engine stops
Previously published in Underground Voices
