Room 116.
My father is ill.
He is an eighty pound skeleton.
Skin whiter than bedsheets,
Hair graying at the tips.
He hasn’t eaten in months.
His lips are wavering caterpillars
Housing yellowed teeth and a fat tongue
That can’t hold back the onslaught of vomit,
And coffee, and swearing.
And his stomach is tiny,
It is too tired to digest.
My mother is a mess.
She goes days without sleep
And lies to nurses about how long it’s been
Since he’s really eaten-
She calculates that pudding packs and mashed potatoes
Count as solid meals,
And says, “It’s only been a week,”
Because seven days is so much lighter
Than seven months.
My mother is a mess.
She brings my daddy two rolled up cigarettes
And pats him on the top of his hands,
Says “You’re just a little sick,
You’ve just got a little cough.”
Daddy untangles from the mass of wires
And unfolds those long, skinny legs of
Bone and bone and bone
And wobbles to the bathroom.
He has his cigarettes there,
in the hospital bathroom
The smoke curling out passed the closed door,
Evidence of his misgivings.
I imagine those cigarettes were sweet
and familiar,
That they fit perfectly between yellowed fingers
That he felt safer in having them,
And so I forgive.
-Crystle LaCroix
