What to Prepare For (Skip Fox)

Creative Commons image by Stephan Geyer

what to prepare for

I didn’t call him daddy from the age of six or seven

in anybody's presence, including his, if I was that kind

of poet this would be that kind of poem, abundance

of little in the face of presumptively abiding under-

standings though of course neither of us believed

the other knew what was or wasn’t the construction

onto which we were so inclined much less the operative

intelligence behind existence,  “Your head must be

swimming,” he said the last time I showed him my work,

he was my first pronoun, last night the most lonely and lovely

of my life I helped my mother wipe his ass held him up

damned near carried him from recliner to wheelchair then

to bed stroked his hand and cheek rubbed his shoulder helped

my sister change him enlarged the hole in the retractable

penal catheter massaged his abdomen until the helmet appeared

pulled it out checked for redness at the slit placed the head

and as much of his cock as I could through the hole

into the bag pressed down on the adhesive round the base

“window-paned" the diameter hooked him up talked

to him listened carefully down the well of his distress

as he responded in gasping exhalations of from one-to-four

syllables to sounds or shapes out of the mirror-glossy horror

window after sundown and chemically-induced slumber proves

transcient turns turn into rolling over in the shallow surf

of sleep-distress scratching his head turning up his blankets

in fists and fits pulling his pillow to his side then pushing

it over the rail grasping my hand with his surprising strength

scratching his arms or the backs of his hands eyes barely

closed jumping to voices apparently out of the glittering

blackness telling him in effect that it was over except

for the misery     “No, no, no         no no"       "Oh my God,

Oh my God"       once        "Forgive      me          Forgive me"        

"Okay     Okay           Let's go          Let's go"         multiple

"I'm ready's"      once      "I wanta          die          I wanta die

I just         wanta die"       twice         "I don't          know     whether

         to shit           to shit         or  get off          the pot" at least

one time of which he could actually have been referring

to what was occurring once something like "I'm stuck          I'm stuck

I can't go           forward          and I can't          go back"

all this time I sat in the wheelchair beside him or occasionally in

the living room's recliner and tried to sleep in the four-to-fifteen-

minute intervals between outbursts or activity with pillow and blankets

Nan coming up the stairs saying "Poor Daddy" so sweetly sad and soft we

changed him and then she sat with him until nearly five when I

relieved her for an hour and a half during which period his cries

and pleas and groans of despair came in supplements of approximately

three every five minutes sometimes more in the hour and a half

before we got him up then an hour later responding to his cries

I said "It's okay Daddy I'm here"      and he      "That           helps

       That helps          Really          helps"     thinking the tone sarcastic

I said      "Well I am"     or maybe     "Regardless"      and he looked

at me through a hole in the cloud      "No no           I mean it Skip

           It really       helps          I'm           glad          you're here"

gasping for breath congestive heart failure and Alzheimer's

the wicked double whammy though profound physical breakdown

and sudden decline may be a mercy disguised as suffering cast

into a cause terrible to die from an existence worse than

continuance lost to himself for forty minutes out he asked

demanding agitated      "What are we doing          What are we

          going to do"      and      "What are the plans          What

are the plans      I just wanta           know           what are

           the plans"       "Well Daddy in forty minutes Nan and I

will get you up and into to your chair and cover you so you'll be warm

and then we'll get your tea" which with Mom and Judy's help we later did

and more and he responded calmly      "Forty minutes          I can do

           that"     and twenty minutes out in response to general agitation

probably moaning something like      "Oh shit          Oh shit          Shit"

or      "No    No       No no" such flashes every minute or so I told him what

we'd do in twenty minutes using the same formulation and again it

calmed him fifteen minutes before we got him up I asked him

to be patient and he said        "I don't wanta          be patient           I

don't wanta           be patient"      I said      "You can try to be patient.

     Remember the patience we had when we used to fish"     he nodded

his head so I went on to the cleaning bench by the pump-shed two

guys scaling two filleting and one running about cleaning up

carrying packs to freezers and pulling more fish off the lines

such was the magnitude of our catch occasionally rock bass and

perch      he said in his short bursts     "We sure had          some good times          didn't we          didn't we          Son"     and I said something like 

"We sure did"      he said      "And there'll       there'll be        be more

        in         the future"     weakly waving his hand             as I turned

to the wall           and he fell into      a sleep that lasted over three minutes

---

—Skip Fox