1974 Almanac

The staff psychologist—the one we don’t trust.

{Unctuous, “well-coated.” Like a poisonous flower. Nerium oleander. Wolfbane in Dostoyevsky glasses.}    

And how are we?  

My father wanes.

His posture while attended to in bed: (i) broken candelabra.

Mickey Mantle, my father says from a corner of his mouth.      

The Commerce Comet, I say.

He likes to wash dishes there, he says.

Where ‘there’? I say.

We sit at a table by the coffee dispenser in the facility’s dinette.

My father juts his chin. Re-juts. Neck-craning. Communicating with birds. His lips keep moving.  

My father is passing through last doors.

         Feast of Cocked Hats.

         Holy Smell of Train Yard.

         Bread of Abandonment.

Bread of Troubled Gums.

He stretches his mouth to invite his teeth to leave.

Skylab 4. The tallest building in Akron, Ohio. Broadway Joe Namath. Joe Willie Namath.

O Renamer, rename him.

Do you remember Bo Schembechler? I ask him.   

Oh sure, he says to me like a man I meet on a bridge.