Washing My Father’s Feet

// Ana Preger Hart

He welcomed us with an open door and a catheter bag,
tall bones smiling, unsteady, face the palest gray.
Steel sky spilled from his eyes. Another verse

of my father. He did not come the next day. Lazy
July. People still die in small hospital beds, amidst
metal, white and mint walls. Yellow and pink blooms

at the gate, I did not bring a bouquet. He resisted
our visits, our worries. Windows in the room, at least
shady. Whirring oscillation of the fan. Another man,

decades younger, lay in the bed beside. Mine was tied
into fluids and clear lines. I read the unsaid pleas
that it would not end here, when he was powerless

to reach his feet. I soaked a washcloth at the sink
and got to work.