MY FATHER

My father
(age 87)
lays in the hospital bed
his cadaverous demeanor
beneath the white sheets
sketches a portent of the immediate future

His face resembles
so many sunken caricatures
laid to rest
on the silk pillows of forlorn caskets,
death causing the ultimate implosion
as the body caves in on itself
like a Florida sink hole

The eyes open intermittently,
but their milky countenance,
wet and glazed,
like a freshly waxed floor,
are oblivious
and appear fixed on recollections
far removed from the present,
while the figures at bedside
are nothing more
than cloudy shapes in a foggy dream

Stubble on the chalky cheeks
creates a vagrant’s visage,
out of character
for the stolid father/steelworker,
the blue collar ethnic paradigm
from another era’s ethic

What was once robust and profane,
bustling with rude energy
and working class bravado
has been sucked and siphoned
by the cruel joke that is old age,

and like air escaping a leaky tire,
his wilting body has its life force
dribble away a wheeze at a time.

The skin on his arms
hangs like soggy paper mache
ready to dissolve at the slightest touch,
the wan flesh mottled with brown specs.
It is tired flesh, rippled and sagging
and evaporating like cotton candy
in humid summer air,
muscles worn,
their bulk and elasticity
fading like the ancient pictures
 tucked inside the creases
of his battered wallet.