I found this poem in the Washington Post Book World Poet's Corner on Sunday.
Grady is a Viet Nam Veteran and a drummer. He married my sister many years ago, worked hard, liked to hunt, road a motor bike and occasionally raised hell. Now he's in Hospice care.
Morphine
The man lying in bed is dying
from cancer, flecks of bone
flow like ice in his blood.
Outside it’s snowing,
lightly in the street, white petals
from a pear tree.
Everything is starting
to feel immense. His children,
like four pylons,
quietly resemble each other.
They pull at glasses
of Dewar’s. They can’t help
but notice the petals, the snow
blowing together in the street.
They chat politely, take salt
from his forehead,
on their lips, as they go
out the door, agreeing
he looks bad. They don’t know
the man’s floating on
a blue raft, an ocean, a small
Pacific. He’s smoking
a pleasant cigarette; it’s nice,
lukewarm, no undertow.
James Hoch
