Veins puffy with purple lividity deem.
Like some saint weeping at the nativity scene
A desperate call down the hallway
and listening to my father, for once, have nothing to say.
To hear my father weep over the death of his only brother
to see that last glimpse before the candle's smothered.
To hear and explain it all back as a dream.
Listening to my fathers un piteous screams.
that tense in my spine as the police show up
and the detective with his bear claw and stained coffee cup.
The medics asking why we moved him since he'd been dead for hours
but my father just wanted to fight the higher powers.
With his lips on death and his hands on a broken pump
leaving me to come in and see him in a piled slump.
A laundry load never to be thrown in the dryer
another higher than thou martyr's of Jesus, flyer.
So now when I do my daily batch of clothes
that scent of death still reminds my nose.
Reminds me to the day when I was to lose my second dad
and come to miss all of those passed moments gone and had.

06/04/1999

Posted on 12/16/2003
Copyright © 2025 Aaron Howard