Old Timers

There are things we will never understand.

Not you. Not I.

The man I once wished

would curl up and die

smiles

a smile of the old and disoriented

And I love him again,

as if we shared the secret

the one we shared

from the time I was born

until I was ten.

Keep this thought-

There are things we will never understand.

Like the innocence of the time we spend

when the time is right

and there is work to be done.

Courting a wife

Building a home

Giving life

To a son of your own.

My father sat with tubes in a tangle

(I had closed the door

because, I believed,

it was modesty

that kept him alive)

He smiled at me

I want to believe

the same way

he smiled at me

when I was five.

The chain

disappears

link by link beneath the water.

The nurses come in to turn him over.

He stays afloat

And drifts

Through the arc

of the anchor

that holds him fast.

He’s smiles

like he knows the answer

at last.