My father is unshaven as though he just woke – grey stubble on bruised skin.
What time is it? he asks. It’s 3 pm, I answer. Shouldn’t I be asleep? he asks.
His eyes opaque, search mine, seek something I cannot provide.
A shadow covers his brain, the one that once knew Greek and Latin unable now to hold
five minutes of English. I want to go home, he says. Why can’t I go home?
His day has turned into night. Night confuses him. I hold his hand and stroke his bony back.
Margaret Anne Kean received her BA in British/American Literature from Scripps College and her MFA from Antioch University/Los Angeles. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in poems.for.all.com, Eunoia Review, Drizzle Review, EcoTheo Review and Tupelo Quarterly. She is collaborating with a Portland, Oregon composer to set a tanka series. Kean lives in Pasadena, California.
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