Visitation

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 29, 2000 by Mary Willette Hughes

   I walk straight ahead, choose
   not to see an old lady tied
   to her wheelchair, crumpled
   like empty clothes,
   choose not to imagine pain
   as an old man's arm flails
   the table before him,
   choose not to hear others mutter
   suffering.

   I go to my father's room, past
   remnants of people scattered
   like empty shells, leaning on crab-footed
   canes, using start-and-stop
   walkers. They slide snail feet,
   inching wheelchair houses
   around the square, to nowhere.

   My father sits, twice tied
   at shoulders and hips, staring
   at a blank screen.
   I wheel him to the dining room
   where smoking is allowed.

   After two cigarettes
   and three thin cigars are smoked
   without pause, he signs himself
   absently, but perfectly,
   from forehead to chest,
   left shoulder to right.

--Mary Willette Hughes Waite Park, Minn.

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