One of these days you will exhale 
without control, leave flesh atop a stained hospital bed, 
memories with distant relatives, 
grief with the child closest at heart. Your daughter, 
the woman who nursed you until pain 
became a gentle touch, was the strongest 
of them all, cried only once to herself 
at the funeral, was there when you went out into 
that open unknown, foundry of indefiniteness. 
The doctors with their silly ideas and apparatuses —
tried pushing life back into an 
already rigor mortising body, a chunk of meat 
forgetting how to sing or laugh or dance 
amongst the insipid living. But what they don't know — 
and probably will never know — is that 
you already said your good-byes, 
made your peace; even bidded farewell to me 
in a dream, near a speck between distance —
I see you often in my remembering, out in the distant, 
Why are you roaming, Old Man, what is it 
that brings you into this realm? 
What job has undone your eternity 
for you to wake me in sleep, for this passage, 
this esoteric evocation? Why me? 

I think about the last time 
you spoke short sentences into the receiver, how 
proud — for reasons I couldn't understand —
you were of me for fighting life; grandson in prison: 
Murder. He did what he had to do, 
survival, you would tell my mother 
with a strong voice and look in your eye that made her 
second guess your pastoral duties, past exuding. 
I bet you're hovering, hunched over me as I write, 
guiding my spirit through dark valleys and uncharted plains, 
spots where you've been, old man, in spirit 
through thought, to tell me that life is a 
waiting room, be patient and love all who waits 
with you — even your enemies. 

I rush through life and hate my enemies. Your daughter 
drinks herself closer to you. I'm going mad 
because I never got the chance 
to hug the flesh that raised me.

//Demetrius Buckley is a contributor to The Periphery.