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Frail

I wrote this poem about my father at least a year before he died. He was on oxygen, on steroids, terrible emphysema from 55 years of unfiltered Camel cigarettes. He would not accept much help and became more and more of a hermit. He did continue with the Rainshadow Chorale and because of it he quit smoking three years before he died.

Frail

We are going sailing
My partner says to me
“Invite him if you want.”

Then I am busy for a while

I think of calling, then forget

He was not at chorus on Monday

At last I say,
“I haven’t called. We’ll just sail.
Just us today.”

I haven’t called
because he was not at chorus on Monday

He is frail
55 years of camels
two packs a day
as if each cigarette
destroyed one alveolus
in his lungs
one tiny air/blood interface
built to exchange oxygen
and carbon dioxide
the loss is cumulative


He is frail
he is proud that the choral director
says, “I need you.”
He can’t sustain
but his entrances and time
are the best
among the basses.
They need him.

Chorus
is our winter link
two introverts
we hug at the start of chorus
sing for two hours
and talk for a few minutes at the end

Occasionally we go for a beer
I invite him for dinner
but he comes less and less
he often does not feel well at night

He looks smaller at chorus
this season
this is normal in emphysema
the body sheds weight
too much tissue to oxygenate
too hard for the lungs
and the heart, working overtime
to make up the difference
he is blessed with low blood pressure
genetic, from his father,
tough English stock,
otherwise I think he’d be dead

I didn’t call
before we went sailing
because I am afraid

I’ve driven out before
when he has not answered the phone
for a day or two
wondering if I would find him dead

I didn’t call
before we went sailing
because he was not at chorus on Monday
because if he didn’t answer today
I would not go

______________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: frail.

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Fear and Finials

The word finial takes me straight to Portland, Oregon and Family Medicine Residency. My grandmother loaned us the down payment for a house and we were in Southeast, on Belmont Street. The neighborhood was coming up rapidly. My son was six months old when we moved there.

Across the street were two houses owned by two couples. All four worked for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in the summers. One woman quit and started a landscaping business. She had six foot tomato plants in her back yard by the end of the summer. She had a gorgeous flower garden in front. She also put up a decorative fence with elegant plexiglass finials.

One day all the finials were smashed. We were all sure that it was Mike. Mike lived in a duplex next to us and was terrifying. Initially it was his mother living there with a potbelly pig that would use a ramp to go down in the yard. The son moved in with his wife and child. His mother and the pig left and then the wife and child did too. Before the wife and child left, Mike knocked on my door and asked about exchanging baby sitters. I explained that we had an arrangement with someone and could not do that. After he left, I told my husband, “Don’t let that man into our house ever.”

As a neighborhood, we discussed what to do if Mike came at one of us. We figured he was on crack, he was terrifying, and we should go for head or knees, because we did not think pain would slow him down. This sounds over the top, right? Nope. My little family was in Eastern Oregon for a ten week rotation. “You missed the fun,” said our neighbors. “Mike threatened to shoot himself, they called out the SWAT team. He shot himself but he missed and only creased his head. He’s in the state hospital for six months.” Except he was back in three months. I’ve also written about him chasing his upstairs neighbor into traffic stark naked, trying to hit him with a five iron. Rush hour traffic stopped dead to watch the show.

We thought the 5 iron probably took out the finials. The owner of the house next door sold it and Mike left. We were all terribly relieved. And that is what the word finial brings up.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: finial.

The photograph is not from Portland, Oregon in the 1990s. It is from London in March 2022.